Dream CVIII

A friend of mine was going to compete in a marathon to raise money for a good cause. She decided to walk the route, rather than run, but she would still raise money and was very happy to participate. I went along with her to cheer her on.

She pinned a number to her tank-top and got ready to start along the route.

I wished her well and went back to a task I had to perform. Someone had brought a large box full of toys to the event, and my job was to defuse them when they became active. Each toy would begin to make alarm sounds, and when they did, they had to be disarmed properly or they might explode.

As I began to do this, another person I knew came up to me and told me he'd decided to play a very funny joke on the marathoner. He said he found a scary-looking live bear, and he'd found a way to have the bear follow the walker. The bear wouldn't attack, but if she looked behind her, she'd see this scary creature and she'd go faster.

I was appalled, and said so. "That's really dangerous! What if the bear attacks? What if she panics, and runs, and the bear decides to attack her? She could be seriously hurt!"

But he just laughed again and walked away.

Because of the rules of the marathon, I couldn't just walk up to her and warn her. So I wrote the problem on pieces of paper, wadded them up, and threw them in the path where I hoped she would see them. But she didn't, she walked over the paper wads and kept going, and the scary bear kept going right behind her.

I couldn't devote my full energy to helping her, though, because I had to defuse the toys. They kept making car alarm-like noises when they began activation, and that's when I had to defuse them.

I got so used to the noise that I actually started to hum something similar...which made one of the toys activate and start making the same noise. Several people looked at me, saying, "Why the heck did you do that?"

I apologized and quickly deactivated the toy. I looked out at the marathoners, and my friend was still walking along, unaware of the bear behind her. I was worried.