I was in Singapore, trying to open a new account at a local bank as I had just got a new teaching job at an international school and was asked to provide a bank account where my salary could be deposited each month.
The woman who was helping me said I needed a pay slip to open the account and when I told her I was starting the job tomorrow, she suggested I ask the school to provide a letter verifying my employment.
I left the bank and drove over to the school to find it particularly quiet for a Monday afternoon.
When I walked into the office, I was met with dispirited greetings, an eerie silence and long cold stares.
A young woman I recognized from the human resources department came up behind me and quietly asked me to follow her.
Once inside her office, she quicky closed the door behind us and told me there was a "situation" going on in the school and perhaps I could help.
"Your application said you worked in a pediatric psychiatry ward," she said. "There is a child, Jimmy, who has barricaded himself in a classroom and is demanding to see Sergeant Roger Dalton and we think he may have a gun or a bomb and we don't know what to do."
She went on to tell me that they had called the FBI who were on the way.
She opened the office door, took me by the hand and began leading me through the hallways and up a flight of stairs. She stopped in front of the closed door of a classroom.
"He's in there with about four or five other teachers. You go in and see what you can do," the woman said as she slowly opened the classroom door.
I saw Jimmy sitting on the window sill looking out into the void. The other teachers just looked at me with frightened looks on their faces.
"Hello Jimmy, I'm the new teacher."
"I'm waiting for Sgt. Roger Dalton," he said without looking away from the window. "I asked him to come to the teacher's break room."
I looked at the teachers sitting there and just as I was about to talk to them, they turned their gaze away from me as if to say, "don't talk to us."
Just then, the door opened slightly. It was the woman from before gesturing that I come. I walked out of the classroom and closed the door behind me.
"He's here," she said. "Sgt. Roger Dalton has arrived and he's waiting in the teacher's break room. Come with me please."
As we walked through the corridors I began seeing a number of police officers, some of who were dressed in tactical uniforms with helmets and gas masks. When we entered the teacher's break room, it had been converted into a virtual command center, with flip charts, computer screens and radar antennas.
Just then, a man walked in and introduced himself as Sgt. Roger Dalton. He was wearing a fairly nondescript, navy blue policeman's uniform and was a fairly common looking sort of fellow.
Reaching out a shaking my hand he said, "they'll be bringing Jimmy in soon, do you have anything you'd like to say or any advice you can give me?"
Not really sure what was going on, I wanted to seem helpful. "How about giving him that teddy bear over there. That would surely help to gain his confidence and make him feel at ease."
A few minutes later, Jimmy was escorted into the teacher's break room flanked by no less than half a dozen heavily-armed tactical officers and was sat in a chair directly in front of Sgt. Roger Dalton.
Dalton looked over to me and then to the teddy bear that was on top of a tea trolley suggesting for me to bring it over. I took the teddy bear from the trolley and handed it to Sgt. Roger Dalton. Before even saying a word to Jimmy, he handed it to him, Jimmy taking it as a little smile appeared on his face.
Just then, a shot rang out and Sgt. Roger Dalton fell to the floor. Silence overcame the room.
Jimmy had planted the teddy bear in the teacher's break room and had concealed a small hand gun whose barrel protruded just slightly out of the teddy bear's eye.
Sgt. Roger Dalton was killed instantly.
Then I woke up.
*This dream was originally manifested on April, 12, 2017
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