Does anyone remember a certain Bat story that came out a while ago?
Batman is out at a strangely casual event with the Justice League. It’s something between a company party and a training retreat. They make their way through various scenarios in an out-of-the-way place, and everythings going fine at first.
Then things start getting strange. Even though an event should have ended, it keeps going on and on, the conclusion retreating farther and farther the closer he gets. A town that should be in one place is in another, and is completely deserted. One moment it’s day, the next it’s night.
At first Batman thinks that it’s the work of a supervillain. The rest of the Justice League doesn’t agree, however, and insists that everything is normal. Batman begins to suspect his friends are either deliberately testing him, or under some sinister, greater power.
Then it all becomes clear. None of it is real. He’s dreaming, trapped in his own paranoid mind, and he has to wake up.
Then I wake up. (Bam! Did you see that twist ending? I sure didn’t.) Yes, I twisted it all up on you (though the above story probably was published sometime back in the sixties), meta-style. I know, there isn’t anything interesting about listening to someone else’s dreams.
There is, however, something interesting about listening to someone’s inadequacies. The reason the setting kept changing randomly was my brain being unable to hold onto the narrative. Everything that happened was obviously a dream. It’s just that I didn’t know it was a dream. Batman did.
Apparently, there is a Batman inside my brain. And he’s smarter than I am.
My only hope now is to eat, drink, and laze myself flabby so that he decides I’m inadequate and doesn’t try to take over my mind and force me to fight crime in my sleep.
