Home in New Jersey. General Zod has become a born-again Christian. He's become the other Superman. Zod watches TBS and hopes Superman isn't watching so he can save the day for once. General Zod wears a gleaming silver outfit that would put the knights in John Boorman's Excalibur to shame. In fact I recall watching a news item showing General Zod matching the speed of an airliner that was about to crash somewhere in the Utah desert. He effortlessly caught the plane and gave it a gentle landing that didn't even require use of those inflatable slides. When he's not saving the world he's a general contractor who is building a deck on the side of my parent's house.

Where were they? I dunno. Maybe I owned the joint. Maybe they're on vacation. I know they're not dead but they certainly aren't home.

The deck isn't the only thing being built. Dusty, paint splattered guys are marching around the house carrying materials and tools while fixing up the place. Zod tips his builder's cap at me with a hearty good morning in Kryptonian which is the only phrase I know from his homeworld. From the living room window I see a line of cars with Colorado license plates pulling up into the driveway and parking on the street. Looking around the house I see the same gross, institutional yellow on the walls rather than my mom's bland peach color. Waddling out of a pair of SUVs are upper management from work. Co-workers are spilling out of cars that surround the house out on the street. Yet there aren't as many as I recall which makes me think there were more firings during their trek.

The general manager goes upstairs into my parents's room, the living room becomes the collections office and processors sit down where ever they please. I go outside on the deck and find Sourpuss there. She starts going on and on about how I took the company president's daughter's bags and threw them on the front porch shouting "Kazam" but she giggles and says that she can't let herself say what I really said. Sourpuss goes on and on finding fault until I stop her, "Is this leading up to something?"
"No." She blinks, oblivious and just as she's about to continue her critical essay I turn around and walk away. She's aghast as if I pissed on her face flapping her mouth like a dying fish because no one ever did that to her in her life. Yet I go upstairs to give the general manager a piece of my mind and give notice.

While I'm waiting a bunch of other co-workers start piling into the room. The general manager is busy having a conversation with the pasty fat redhead who is obsessed with celebrities and pretends they're her best friends in real (and in this case, waking) life. GM looks over, nods to acknowledge the line and goes downstairs while declaring "I'll be baaaaaaack" waving her hand over her head like a retard.

n.b. In retrospect I believe this was my subconscious telling me that my current work environment is a perpetuation of living at home, how it's just as toxic and I'm only staying there because I have money and I'm around bitches.

At this point my ankle starts hurting like crazy. If it was pitch black I could read by it. Everyone else goes downstairs because they know the general manager won't be coming back anytime soon. Once everyone filed out I hobbled down the stairs and left the house. General Zod is kind enough to give me a pair of crutches. While getting accustomed to the weird loping crutch gait I notice that collections is made up of two people now. Leaving the house in tears is the chick who showed me the ropes of collections back in October 2003. In the dream her voice was very deep and left no question in my mind that she really is a transexual.

A few minutes later I'm in Colorado. My co-workers have followed me and they're being led by the redheaded scarecrow chick who does half the work of the other processors. Now I feel left out because they're climbing rocks and trees when it's painful for me to stand in place while keeping my leg off the ground. I throw away the crutches and start crawling. My companion is the son of the former top-processor cum assistant manager to Sourpuss. He's gimped too but not as badly as me.

From our vantage point we can see our fellow slaves clambering up a grassy rise with a 60 degree grade using grass and aspens for handholds. A little to our left is a narrow gully that led to the other side. I start crawling while the guy hops beside me. On the other side is a small meadow with a cinderblock public toilet. He remarks that he's been needing to take a shit something fierce for the last couple of hours and how he thinks the others were in the same boat just taking the scenic route. Much to my surprise he runs over to the toilet when an old bald guy jumps out wearing only a black thong. "RAPE TIME!!!"

No matter how much my ankle was hurting it was not going to stand in the way of getting away from this perverted codger. Each time I ran forward I was overwhelmed by pain but it slowly went down until I only had an ache. Already the others had scattered into the woods but the pervert was still chasing down the other guy. He was doomed because he thought he could take shelter in another nearby public toilet which is the natural environment of the Geriatricus Rapenesis.