"No more yielding than a dream"
Twice now in the past few weeks I've died in my dreams. Two weeks ago while I was visiting my parents in Ohio:
It's the first day of another year of high school, and I'm the new kid in town. During attendance the teacher discovers I'm in the wrong classroom which of course garners snickers from my new peers. She sends me to the vice principal's office to rectify my course schedule. The office area has a small, open waiting lounge with a couch, a couple chairs, table and some potted plants. There are several office doors along two of the walls behind the lounge. In front of the nearest door is a half-walled area with an African-American man with dreads sitting at a small desk. He is currently speaking with a student regarding her schedule. More students are lined up down the hall waiting to speak to him as well. There are a few other students and teachers milling about the lounge area. The man works his way through the line until he gets to the two kids in front of me who seem to have had their schedules switched. Suddenly a loud bang like a car backfiring startles everyone. The door beside the man's desk bursts open and a boy walks out with a gun. He's calm and focused. He fires two shots dropping each of the students who were in front of me in line. He then turns the gun on the guy with dreads who is trying to talk him down. The boy fires causing the man to spin around. He looks me dead in the eye just before he collapses to the floor. By this point panic is in full bloom. Kids and teachers are running and screaming trying to flee the shooter. I turn and dive behind the couch in the middle of the lounge. A few seconds pass with no shots. I push up, lifting my head and shoulders up from the floor just as the gunman walks around to my side of the couch. He studies my face for a moment before firing a shot into my chest. I fall back to the floor. I feel him breeze past me as he starts firing into the crowd of screams. There is chaos until... I wake.
I've been back in Chicago in my own familiar bed for a week now, but this morning:
My father and I are driving through an upper middle class suburban neighborhood that casually wraps its way up a small cliff overlooking a sprawling forest. I'm unclear as to whether my father is simply exploring (as he's prone to do when he's behind the wheel), or if he's showing me this neighborhood for another reason. The houses are large and architecturally unique from each other. Everything is well maintained, and the people we see outside all appear content. There is a wide turn, but my father does not slow down around the curve. A woman walking a sizable dog is crossing the street. She is coming up on our left, but the dog is still on the right side of the street. If we swerve in either direction we will hit one of them, but the van is moving too fast to stop before we hit the leash stretched out in front of us like a finish line. As we plow through the leash, the woman is yanked off her feet, and her body bounces across the van's hood. I'm in shock. I look over to my father who stares forward looking lost. Now I see the street has ended in a cul-de-sac, but my father isn't slowing down. He actually begins to speed up as he jets over the lawns between two of the houses. I think he's panicking. I think he's actually going to hit and run. Then I realize I can't see any more neighborhood in front of us. The ground drops out beneath us as the van flies over the edge of the cliff and into space. I look at my father again. He looks sad but calm. I say, "I love you." He replies, "Yah," without actually looking at me. We've reached the apex of the arc, and I look forward again as the front bumper dips downwards, and we start plummeting towards the ground. The view is amazing. The forest is rich and green as the trees come racing toward us. Branches smack the windshield for a second until... impact. Then, I wake.
Don't really know what any of it means. Not sure if I want to, but I had to get it out of me. -Jt
It's the first day of another year of high school, and I'm the new kid in town. During attendance the teacher discovers I'm in the wrong classroom which of course garners snickers from my new peers. She sends me to the vice principal's office to rectify my course schedule. The office area has a small, open waiting lounge with a couch, a couple chairs, table and some potted plants. There are several office doors along two of the walls behind the lounge. In front of the nearest door is a half-walled area with an African-American man with dreads sitting at a small desk. He is currently speaking with a student regarding her schedule. More students are lined up down the hall waiting to speak to him as well. There are a few other students and teachers milling about the lounge area. The man works his way through the line until he gets to the two kids in front of me who seem to have had their schedules switched. Suddenly a loud bang like a car backfiring startles everyone. The door beside the man's desk bursts open and a boy walks out with a gun. He's calm and focused. He fires two shots dropping each of the students who were in front of me in line. He then turns the gun on the guy with dreads who is trying to talk him down. The boy fires causing the man to spin around. He looks me dead in the eye just before he collapses to the floor. By this point panic is in full bloom. Kids and teachers are running and screaming trying to flee the shooter. I turn and dive behind the couch in the middle of the lounge. A few seconds pass with no shots. I push up, lifting my head and shoulders up from the floor just as the gunman walks around to my side of the couch. He studies my face for a moment before firing a shot into my chest. I fall back to the floor. I feel him breeze past me as he starts firing into the crowd of screams. There is chaos until... I wake.
I've been back in Chicago in my own familiar bed for a week now, but this morning:
My father and I are driving through an upper middle class suburban neighborhood that casually wraps its way up a small cliff overlooking a sprawling forest. I'm unclear as to whether my father is simply exploring (as he's prone to do when he's behind the wheel), or if he's showing me this neighborhood for another reason. The houses are large and architecturally unique from each other. Everything is well maintained, and the people we see outside all appear content. There is a wide turn, but my father does not slow down around the curve. A woman walking a sizable dog is crossing the street. She is coming up on our left, but the dog is still on the right side of the street. If we swerve in either direction we will hit one of them, but the van is moving too fast to stop before we hit the leash stretched out in front of us like a finish line. As we plow through the leash, the woman is yanked off her feet, and her body bounces across the van's hood. I'm in shock. I look over to my father who stares forward looking lost. Now I see the street has ended in a cul-de-sac, but my father isn't slowing down. He actually begins to speed up as he jets over the lawns between two of the houses. I think he's panicking. I think he's actually going to hit and run. Then I realize I can't see any more neighborhood in front of us. The ground drops out beneath us as the van flies over the edge of the cliff and into space. I look at my father again. He looks sad but calm. I say, "I love you." He replies, "Yah," without actually looking at me. We've reached the apex of the arc, and I look forward again as the front bumper dips downwards, and we start plummeting towards the ground. The view is amazing. The forest is rich and green as the trees come racing toward us. Branches smack the windshield for a second until... impact. Then, I wake.
Don't really know what any of it means. Not sure if I want to, but I had to get it out of me. -Jt