Pop-tarts & Jesus

Years ago (in dreams previous), I had entered a contest at school. My entry was a gigantic pop-tart. It was roughly the size of a crib mattress, thicker than a normal pop-tart. Only one end of it was frosted, like where a pillow would go on a mattress or a toenail on a foot, though I wasn't thinking that at the time. My pop-tart treat only got 4th place, which I didn't consider to be anything noteworthy at all. So, I ate it. Wow, it was sooo delicious! Despite its unusually large size, I had no problem handling it or fitting it in my mouth. It was sweet, soft, and moist, just as if I had baked it hours earlier (as opposed to the months or years it had really been). It had a consistency like Taiwanese pineapple pastries (鳳梨酥). I enjoyed my pop-tart, walking around the classroom amongst other students. Class was over.

My friend Michael and his friend were going to a town far away and wanted me to come. I didn't know what we were going for, but also didn't find it important at the time. I felt like if I went, it might be kind of inconvenient for me, but I told them that if there was a bus that could take me back afterward I would go. I didn't have a car. Michael was dressed in his usual goth attire.

Now the classroom I'm in is part of a church building, and there are several people selling different pieces of art and furniture. My friend Chris has a framed painting of Jesus Christ that he wants to sell me, and he's pushing pretty hard. We take it out of its cardboard box and its packing and set it up on the wall. In this painting, He's standing, wearing a light blue robe. I look at it for several minutes, sizing it up, deciding if I like it enough to buy or not. There's a small, black button on the frame. I pick up the frame with ease - it's almost weightless. The painting isn't bad, but upon pressing the button, it turns into a hooded, hunched over Jesus with a nasty look on his face. It seriously looked like the grim reaper, except instead with a shepherds hook. After pressing the button to flip back and forth several times, it finally sinks in how creepy and wrong this really is. I totally don't like it, so I pack it back up and put it in the box where I got it. Chris finally sees that I had put it away, and starts trying to convince me to buy it again. He's very persuasive, and I convince myself that maybe I just don't need to press that button, and it will be okay. He wants $140 for it, which is more than I want to pay for a piece of art anyway, so I prepare mentally to bargain the price down, looking at what other things in the room are selling for.

The box it's in falls heavily on the floor as we go back to open it. We open the box to find that there are also hymn books and other heavy things inside, all of which got heavily damaged by the fall. I take out one of the books and examine it. The binding and everything got heavily wrinkled. Perhaps it took the fall so that the art didn't have to. The next piece of padding I pull out is a piece of shrubbery. The painting is no longer in the box, but upon seeing the shrubbery, I don't even notice. I pull it out and find that the shrub/tree didn't get damaged at all. "That's good," I think to myself.

I'm outside now, in an american-style driveway in front of a house with a well-groomed lawn. Brother Huang from church in Taiwan walks up and says hi. He's friendly as always. We plant the shrub on the corner of his lawn, where it instantly starts reaching out. It has differnet types of branches, including ones with short pine-like needles, and some especially long, thin, purple cactus branches that reach out farther than the rest. The cactus branches are the most beautiful, and we admire them together. It blows in the wind, and reaches out farther and farther, like it's growing at the same time too. A navy blue mini-van pulls up into the driveway and parks. The cactus reaches out and brushes the tires as it goes by. Sister Huang and her two amazingly cute kids pile out of the van. Brother Huang asks me if I would like to stay for lunch, and I accept.