Unlike most of my fear-inducing crazy dreams, the one described below made me laugh. Enjoy it.

The dream began in an extremely large and crowded shopping mall. A coworker and I departed a train that served the mall, and began working our way through the moving mass of people. To which shop she and I were headed, I do not know; we seemed to be no hurry, so browsing may have been our intention. As we chatted about unimportant things, sharing a laugh, another of my coworkers, another chick coworker approached us and interrupted the conversation to pull my friend away for a private word. The conversation looked serious, erasing the cheery disposition of the coworker with whom I had been walking. After a few moments, she came back over and we began again to walk and chat, when I noticed that her demeanor had changed so that she wasn't quite so talkative, a little distant, keeping a bit of extra space between us as we walked.

"What's wrong," I asked.

"Nothing. It's nothing." She tried to pass it off with a faint smile and nod of her head.

The hum of hundreds of conversations swirled around us as we walked in silence.

I broke it. "No, really. What is wrong? What did she say to you?" I needed answers.

"She just...," she paused to reconsider. "She said you got some other girl pregnant." So there it was, blurted out is a mix of disgust and disbelief. My feet kept moving but my brain shut down for just a moment, my eyes opened wide, mouth hanging open.

"That's crazy. Where is she?" We both stopped and stood on tiptoes, looking around, and spotted her at the same time as she boarded the train. We hurried toward it as it began pulling away.

"We've got to catch that train. She's going to tell you that's not true. It's ridiculous!" I ran, my friend a few steps behind as she struggled to keep up. Wildly I shoved my way through the crowd until finally we reached the tracks. The train had pulled out of the mall, and I kept running, following behind it.

I noticed then (not my dream self, but the near-conscious part of me that knew this was a dream but watched it playing out in my imagination) that the mall was in the middle of a vast field, with distant forest all around. The train, at a leisurely pace, headed away from the mall. The lying girl walked to the caboose, standing on the small balcony at the very rear to watch us running behind.

I was getting closer and closer, and the girl realized that I was going to catch up. She stepped backwards into the car. Finally I seized the rail of the caboose and pulled myself up, pausing only a moment to catch my breath. My hands were clenched so hard I could feel my fingernails digging into flesh. I relaxed them, spreading my fingers wide, only to ball them up again. I was determine to make this girl tell the truth.

She kept taking small steps backward, grabbing onto the hand rail to keep her balance as the car swayed gently side-to-side. My friend finally caught up, and I was nearly to girl, who was clearly afraid of what I might do.
I screamed at her, "Say it was a lie!"

She was silent.

My chick friend stood quiet at the rear door.

"Tell the truth! Tell her it was a lie!" I could see the spittle flying from my mouth.

Still she said nothing, only grabbed a pole and pulled herself tight against it. I was within two feet of her now.

"Tell her what you said was not true! Say it!" I raised my hand to hit her and she closed her tight. I smacked her sharply on the cheek, then backhanded her other.

Her eyes opened wide. "It's, it's not true," she stammered; nearly a whisper. I smacked again, harder. "Tell her it's a lie!"

"It's a lie," her voice rising with every word, "I made it up! It's not true! It's a lie." Finally she was screaming as tears fell down her red cheeks, over the handprint I had made on her white skin. "It's a lie!"

Still breathing hard from the run, and full of adrenaline, I turned my around to see my chick friend still standing quiet in the doorway. There's no better description than the cliche deer in the headlights for the look she had on her face. White-knuckled, she gripped the doorframe.

"It's a lie," she whispered.

I woke up.