Back in 1984-85, I worked with, and briefly for, a news director who was as evil and devoid of personal ethics as any human I have ever known. She fabricated anonymous sources who added dramatic details to stories. She lied to her staff about even trivial things, often to pit the employees against each other. She once told a job candidate she wouldn't hire him because he was unable to interpret a 'negative psychic dream' she'd had about him.
The staff called her "the orange rat."
She just turned up in a dream I had.
In the dream, she has somehow reappeared in my life, and I have been assigned to cover two stories for her, even though I am no longer a reporter. One hasn't panned out at all, and the other is sort of turning out, but isn't going to be a barn-burner. It seemed to involve a newspaper violating an obscure tenet of its own code of ethics. I'm wondering how I got shanghaied into doing this stuff, because I'm not a reporter any more.
I decide I'm going to sneak out of the building and go to the grocery store to get an ice cream sandwich. I tiptoe down the hall, feeling my way in the dark so I won't have to turn on a light that might draw her attention. The building is unfamiliar, so I'm using my hands to search for the wall, and later a handrail as I make my way down the steps.
Then I'm outside, and it looks like I'm going to make my getaway. I know I'm doing the wrong thing. I should stay and keep working on the stories, even though they're bogus and aren't going to produce anything. But I'm a web designer, dammit, not a reporter. It's not my problem anymore.
It's night, and I'm walking through a park. The building is behind me. I've gotten away clean.
Suddenly, a big flood light comes on behind me. I look over my shoulder, and there's my news director from twenty years ago, looking out into the night from the back door of the building.
I've put enough space between myself and the building that it's possible she can't see me in the dark, but I can't be sure. She walks out to her car and gets in, and I realize she's coming to look for me.
There are trees and big shrubs in the park. I pick one to hide behind, then change my mind and choose another. I see her car coming up the street, headlights on. I position myself so that a tree and big shrub is between her and me. I see that there's someone else walking in the park up ahead of me. Maybe she'll mistake that person for me, I think, and I can break off in a different direction while she's following the wrong person.
There is a voice, like that of a radio announcer, describing what's happening, and mentions something about her once owming a Mazda dealership. This comes as a suprise to me. I even wonder why it's an element of the dream.
She travels past me, and it looks like I'm safe.
But her car suddenly turns into a Vespa or a bicycle or something. She turns right off the street onto the grass, wheels around, and rolls to a stop right in front of me. She doesn't say anything. She just stares at me.
"Oh fuck," I say out loud, and I force myself to wake up.
I have nightmares about TV news all the time. It was like a 25-year stay in a prison camp with impeccably-dressed inmates. This is the first dream I've had involving this person, whom I have not seen, heard from or spoken to since 1985.
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