You know you've been reading too much manga...

... and have been suffering too much from the heat, and generally have fed your weird imagination too much when...

...you wake up at a quarter to six in the morning after having dreamed that...

... you are working as an intern in a 5-star hotel, a sort of Roman villa, all columns and soothing colors and wide, breathing spaces. You're there with some friends that you've just made, and others that you've been friends with for ages: Winry Rockbell, Al Elric, and the main character from Vinland Saga (who kinda almost in the right light maybe looks like Ed, and therefore, for all purposes, /is/ Ed). Also, for some absconse reason, Reese Witherspoon, who's a nice enough gal, albeit a bit nose-up-in-the-air. (she's pissed at Winry and they generally have had words about who among them is the natural blonde)

You go about your daily business and it's all fun and games until a monstruous rain comes (kinda like how it rained here two nights ago), at which point you have to pack and go home, because since, of course, the hotel is /all/ open spaces, both you and the guests risk getting soaked. You have no idea where the guests will go, but that's none of your business.

While everyone is packing, you realize that you need to go to the toilet, where you learn that not only is it going to rain cats and dogs, but also that the Devil is coming. Hmmm... time to go then! But first... you have to find your damned /cat/, who, as per tradition, is hiding somehwere exactly when you have to pack her up. You chase the cat all around the Roman villa and, when you finally find her, you realize that you don't have the cat carrier bag with you, and you have to put the cat /somewhere/, because you need your hands relatively free, for your other luggage (that, and the cat is kinda on the fattish side). So you put the cat in your pocket calculator (which has a little top that you can snap on and off).

By the time you get to the point where you were supposed to take the bus heading for home, you see that everyone else was there, waiting for you. Everyone's a little worried that they might not have time to leave before the rain and the Devil get there, but no-one chastizes you. Instead, Reese asks you to go with her in her car, that she'll drive you home. By this time, you have put the pocket calculator, with the cat still inside, inside the cat carrier (but in your rush, you have forgotten to actually let the cat out of the calculator, where it's most definitely /not/ comfortable).

The only people who are not in a great hurry to get out of there are Winry and Al, whom you suspect are in love, and only have eyes for each-other (the fact that guy nr 3 is not really Ed makes this easier for your subconscious to stomach), and wannabe-Ed, who's keen to meet the Devil, because he has some questions about Human Transmutation that he'd like to ask him.

You get home, in Reese's car, while having just met /her/ cat (which is kinda like yours, only slimmer) and her bunny (which is a really cute, fluffy think which works part-time as a chef in Anthony Bourdain's restaurant). When you get home, you see that everyone is in front of your appartment buidling (but then, that's /home/ for everybody) along with your supervisor from your hotel, who's asking everyone to make reports. You remember to let your cat out of the carrier and out of the pocket calculator, and she promptly scratches you and complains she was uncomfy. You're glad, because at some point after having met the bunny, you'd begun to worry that your cat was actually dead.

Your supervisor is Italian, so the reports go a bit slowly and painfully. You explain, in very /simple/ English, what had happened. Reese's turn comes after you, and, in fluent Italian, she accuses you of animal cruelty towards your own cat. You understand jut barely enough to get the general idea, and you bust your brains trying to come up with the right vocabulary to explain to the si-senor-English-speaking supervisor what "attenuating circumstances" are.

At this point, wannabe-Ed saves you by suggesting that there /is/ evidence against Reese's claims, and that's reading the manga of all that had happened (which was being written as everything was happening). However, it was all /his/ view of what had happened, and since you had been in the car with Reese, the manga does not shed any light on the matter. However, it does distract the supervisor, who becomes much more interested in what Winry and Al were doing to each-other under their airplane-like seat tables while on the subway heading home.

Reese is a bit pissed, so goes away.

I woke up after this debacle for some reason badly craving this song. However, when I watched its video (for the first time), I started grinning and sniffling like a maniac - because they were so sweet, and because they seemed to have so much /fun/ on stage, live each moment so strongly, feel their own music so beautifully. And because that image, of Yoshiki falling to the ground, the same one started and stopped and picked up again throughout the video, is sooooo painful, until you see him getting up again, walking on.



Music to heal the soul. And RIP hide.