Me, another man and his son are walking through a suburban park at dusk. We each have a soccer ball. On our left is a gigantic dam wall that we are walking along the base of. Smooth concrete meets manicured lawn. On our right is a lovely view of our small town, spread out below us. We are walking across all of this lush grass towards the lone soccer pitch at the far end of the dam wall.
We are discussing local politics, and the fact that tonight is the time of the budget pencil. It is during this one night that the city pencil is taken out of its case, and the current mayor uses it to allot funds and resources to all of the civic projects. The pencil is used to write all of these on 3X5 cards, and when the pencil is worn down, then the budget is spent. The stub of the pencil is put back into its glass case, and it slowly grows over the year as tax and other monies flow into the city's coffers.
Anyway, we're wondering when the city is going to fix the old dam when we all run into an invisible soccer net. We extricate ourselves, only to bang into the poles from which the net is strung from.
Ping! Ow!
Then we're excited! Funding! The pencil is writing a card for soccer equipment! We run on and crash into more invisible goals and nets until we figure out where the layout of the new fields is going to be. Finally we decide it would be safer to take our bruises home and be safe. Soon, the funding will flow into the project and the goals will become real.
It is then, walking back, that we suddenly realize that the dam wall has disappeared. Oh no! Zero funding! They erased the dam along with its repairs! We watch in horror as a wall of gigantic 3X5 cards appear where the wall used to be. And instantly wet stains appear, and as the light of the day fails, we see the cards warp and buckle.
We run, only to be trapped in the nets.
Back to the land of Dreams.