I had a strange dream this morning. I dreamed I was boiling oil in a cooker plugged in an outlet inside the freezer. For some reason I was moving the cooker and it splashed hot oil onto my left hand and burned a straight line in it. I pulled the plug so I could move the cooker onto the counter and noticed the ice was crackling and boiling. It wasn't from the cooker being inside the freezer, it was from the plug in the freezer. It was some kind of short circuit. So I turned to my wife and asked her several times if she knew what it was but of course she wasn't listening to me. I plugged the cord in and pulled it out to hear the cracking connection. Then the light blew out because of the short circuit. I turned to my wife and was going to ask her to get me another but I knew it would just piss her off. Joel was standing with her so I asked him to get me a seven-and-a-half watt bulb from the cabinet. But he produced one from his pocket that was screwed onto a black string that had his key on it. It was always curiously funny the odd things Joel had in his pockets. I pulled the small bulb off and another smaller bulb was in its place. One that looked like the old-timey flash bulbs my grandfather used to take pictures at Christmas. I thought that was odd but didn't mention it to Joel. I leaned into the freezer to replace the bulb but noticed the base was too big, I needed the thinner, less common base, to make it fit into the socket. Joel put his hand on my shoulder and said he loved me, the way he did every day when he was alive. He had a deep but angelic voice. I wanted to ask him some questions but the alarm clock woke me.
This was the first time I have dreamed about Joel in a very long time. I was beginning to wonder if he hated me and took all his dreams away. I felt chilled and pulled the sheet over my shoulder and noticed that it didn't hurt my rotator cuff. I haven't been able to lift my arm for months as it hurt so badly. I rolled over on my back and was happy to have heard Joel tell me he loved me. I haven't heard that in so long. He would say it every time he left the room or before he hung up the phone. He was such an innocent young man. He'd call from school to update me on when and where to pick him up. I'd hear rude kids in the background making fun of him because they knew he'd say, "I love you" before he hung up. But he didn't care. He was my angel. Turns out these kids were the small group of kids who systematically ripped Joel from our family and brain-washed him into thinking they would replace his family. This was a group of kids who had a "secret" group; a Cult who were also into the Occult and Demonology. Adam Chauncy was the group leader. May still be too. I later found this out by reading Joel's journal, notes passed back and forth in school, and Joel's e-mail.
