I'm a dreamer and an occasional seer of visions so I typically pay some heed to the former and close attention to the later.
Last night's dream (I only remember one dream from last night) is troubling on a few different levels. I often write out my dreams as a way to get a handle on them and this one I thought might be worth sharing:
I'm in what appears to be a large shopping mall. There are the usual things, crowds of people, various shops, kiosks, hawkers of diverse merchandise... but things seem different, futuristic, as though the technology for sale, as well as the mall itself, is of an advanced state that we have yet to achieve.
As I'm looking around at the wonders I realize I'm in a wheelchair, being pushed. I look down at my body. I am very thin [maybe a bleed-over from my dieting, I've now lost 40 pounds, 20 more to go at least], and my hands are wrinkled. In the dream I realize I'm much older that I thought I was, maybe in my 70's of 80s or maybe my health has deteriorated to the point that I merely look that old. I'm not sure.
Someone is talking to me. The voice is soothing but the words don't register, most of them anyway. I cock my head up and over and see my wife behind and above me. She has also gotten older but doesn't seem to be nearly as old as me now [even though we are the same age]. She is talking animatedly, maybe about the shops or some gadget someone is selling. I notice a kiosk that is selling paintings of waterfalls and volcanoes, except the water and lava are actually moving as if real. Very life like. I watch the movement without comment or thought.
Someone approaches us, two people, and we stop to greet them. My wife greets them. I know them but I'm not sure why or who they are. Its a man and a woman... maybe my son and his [future] wife? They seem happy, carefree. The three of them are talking merrily. My gaze returns to the waterfall and volcano.
The woman places a hand on my shoulder returning me to awareness of their presence, and says something. I force my mind to pay attention, to understand her words. But she sounds like the school teacher and other adults on those old Charlie Brown TV specials [The words are merely sounds... wa wa waaa whoo ahwaw...]. I focus on her, it is difficult but I try and listen...
"wa wa waaa whoo ahwaw but... whooo wa... was off on this..."
They laugh. Its a friendly, non-condemning laugh of familiarity. The sort of laugh one makes to say, "Its just like him or her to do that..." Chit chat and friendly banter.
My wife then says, "wa wa waaa admit that for a while it looked ahwaw...."
The man adds, "Sure did, I thought we were gonners for a while, but then wa waaa whoo..."
"wa wa waaa changed it all, now just look arouwhooo wa..."
From deep within my consciousness a light emerges. I can almost see it, golden, awakening me... it has substance, I can taste it...It is sweet but it burns when I swallow and turns my stomach... (a reference to the scroll John ate?) and I wonder where my Prilosec is... maybe on my desk... but suddenly I am aware, with absolute clarity, of that moment in time. I force-shift my body and make myself speak, "How wong?" it sounds even to my ears... "How long?"
Excitedly the people gather around me. They seem shocked that I have spoken, replied to what they were saying.
"How long what?" my wife prompts me.
"How wong thence things wot betterer?"
I sound like I've been to the dentist's office!
They exchange a look. They know what I'm asking...
Just then there's a sound, a wizzing, roaring descending rumble...
We all look up towards the upper levels of the mall and beyond to its stunning translucent roof. It looks like paper thin white marble with golden streaks illumined by the bright sun. A circular shadow is gradually growing directly over head even as the roaring whooshing grows louder.
We watch speechless. The mall is suddenly quite, like a tomb... it has that feeling... but the circular shadow is moving away now, though it continues to get progressively bigger and louder... We watch its shadow pass on down the mall like the shadow of Death seeking his next victims.
It is way too quiet.
Everyone is staring up towards the roof in dumbfounded amazement.
We all jump slightly from the start as the man says, "I don't know," as if he doesn't want to acknowledge that what is happening is really happening, "...a few years..."
The woman looks at him uncertain. "Wha..."
I'm not sure how much time I have lost, but I suddenly know it has been just shy of four years, since the world become a paradise...
Time seems to stop. In the distance there is an explosion. The earth shakes, the mall is rocked, the glass-like ceiling over our heads erupts in splinters of ceramic snow that falls down on us in torrents. We avert our eyes but the shards don't cut us. I note this even as the world becomes black and I lose consciousness....
"I've got to go..."
I'm in bed. I throw off the covers and get to my feet with an agility I haven't known for years. There are several people in the room, including my wife and both of my sons, now grown, and others I don't know. Maybe a dozen people, maybe a few more.
We are in someone else's house, not ours, at least I don't recognize it, but my wits are fully returned to me now as they have not been for years. I'm not sure what came before this moment.
Now I'm walking naked down a long hallway and I glance into an oblong full-length mirror and pause at the sight of me, So old! The thought is triggered then passes just as fast with the thought that age is but an illusion. My cloths are laying on a flat surface beside the mirror, the top of a cedar chest perhaps. I smell the cedar. It is good, I inhale deeply and note in passing, pleased, that I don't cough.
The people from the bedroom are following me, arguing that I mustn't go out. "We're under curfew.." and "You're too old"... "the doctor said..." But I keep moving.
I don't know where I'm going but I know I am going where I need to be....
... Its dark, overcast and gray like a storm drenched autumn afternoon in Virginia Beach, VA... but I'm not in Virgina Beach nor in the US. "The US is a memory without substance," I quote. I don't know what this means, but the thought is there.
Suddenly this "dream" is familiar...
This realization is in the dream. I know it... I have seen this before... when I was 12... in my 1969 vision. When I lived in Virginia Beach, years later, I experienced such a day as this and the thought, "A day like today," hit me then; this is the memory of that certain feeling now... And I saw all of this then! Just like this!
The buildings are too tall. They dwarf me. They belittle and consume all life into inconsequential irrelevance... and I "know" that just around the next corner is the government headquarters (which government? I wonder but don't really care, because there is only one and it is evil. It is the source of this grayness).
I'm hidden in the shadows of the shadowy day, in an inset doorway of one the behemoth buildings that are too alive in some way that I don't fully understand but that I know to be true.
I can hear THEM walking their beats, not as police but as soldiers, as the troopers who came to us in the German Reich to destroy us. Their sounds echo, cause my blood to run cold... I know they are looking for me, in part at least... they are looking for... (for who? does it matter?). I shutter as I recall the feelings of the German Shepherds in Bulgaria that sought for us among the "vermin" of the streets (reference) but I will not back down, not this time! I will resist! I will stand! (I wish my legs and hands would stop shaking!)
I hear gunshots, automatic weapons firing... an explosion in the distance like tank fire or something even more destructive... footsteps... echoing throughout this concrete and darkened glass jungle... I back further into the shadow of the doorway uncertain of what I should do.
Just then, another joins me. He darts into the doorway, into the shadows. When he notices me he smiles an intoxicating, knowing half smile and says, "I guess its time."
I know him. I have always known him. I return the smile and nod. "Its time."
We hear them coming before we can see them.
It is not raining, but a heavy mist like dark drapery limits our view, distorts our vision and we behold not men, not soldiers, but darkly fluid forms of wrongness approaching.
We exchange a glance and step out into the street to meet them...
There is something menacing over head, overshadowing us. It is dark and gray as if wishing to remain concealed yet it is faintly illuminated. It is huge, a curiosity but of no immediate concern and I refocus on the task at hand.
THEY round the corner and see us. They freeze for a moment, clearly surprised that we are just standing there in the open rather than retreating into the sewers as so many others have. On other days we would have, but not this time. We take a step toward them, and then another, and they open fire...
Our bodies shake as though in the grip of some powerful spasm...
And I woke up...
As always, your thoughts are invited.
No comments:
Post a Comment