Dream. And sorry I've been gone so long.
Last night sucked so bad. First of all, I didn't take my amaaaazing cough medicine. 'Cause I ran out of it. But I thought I wouldn't need it. I'm getting better, right? WRONG!
So I coughed a lot. Every time I'd drift into something that was almost sleep, I'd wake up for another ten-minute coughing fit.
At one point, though, I did get to sleep, and I had shitty shitty dreams.
It was kind of a pre-apocalypse or very-beginning-of-apocalypse thing. There was no more electricity. It was a sudden sort of thing, but it was everywhere. I'm not sure if it was national or global, and I was trying very hard to figure out, but communication was pretty much down everywhere, so it made that seemingly simple question nearly impossible to answer.
We were getting along alright. And by "we" I mean...well...myself. There was at least one other person in the house with me. It was very difficult getting used to everything, but we were doing much better than most of the people in our town. We had been at least mentally prepared. We were fairly optimistic on the situation. Well, maybe not optimistic. I at least was aware that it was the beginning of the end of everything. However, we were good-natured about the whole thing, and I guess that's what counts.
We went to Wal-Mart at one point. I'm pretty sure we weren't there to purchase anything, but we were getting the things we needed. People were crazy. We weren't there alone. The weird thing was that many of the Wal-Mart employees had declared some sort of crazy allegiance to their store, and despite the lack of lights, cash registers, freezers and the like, were very possessive of the place and determined to kill--yes, kill--anyone who was trying to take what they had taken as their own when the system crashed. It was frightening. I remember a fan and a vacuum cleaner both being used as weapons. John was hurt in the process, so I guess he was with me. In the dream, I wasn't particularly happy that he was the one with me, but I seemed to accept it as enough until we found the rest of us. Jessie was safe. Adam was at home. There were a number of other people we hadn't heard from, but were hopeful that they were okay. Hadn't heard from Padawan, though.
Anyway, we got supplies and made it back home with a wounded John. I was very upset at this point, if only about the way our fellow human beings were acting.
I hadn't heard from my family, and wasn't really keen to. I knew that they'd be acting just like the rest of those people--angry, confused, and willing to turn on a friend or family member at the drop of a hat. Every man for himself. I've never liked that mentality.
The house was a wreck, and for some reason, it was getting harder and harder to keep things in some imitation of normality. We kept all of the doors open when we could. The dogs and cats were gone, and probably for the best. We wouldn't have been able to feed them forever. I don't know what happened to them. I hope they were okay.
John's seemingly minor injury was in his leg, and it got worse with the lack of medicine, or something. He died. I wasn't alone, though. I think Adam was there, or maybe Aidan. I was more aware of a presence that visually assured of this, though. John died outside in the yard, in a corner where two of the outer walls met. In one of these walls was a door. John was dead, and he had black hair. I coped. I moved him and buried him, though I probably didn't do a very good job. I remembered thinking that I should be more upset, but I was more in a state of shock. I felt as though I didn't have time or energy to be upset. I had to survive. John tried to survive, and he didn't. He wouldn't be the first. I knew this and I told myself this, over and over, so that I would keep some sort of resolution to go on, no matter who or what I lost.
A car pulled into my backyard a few days later, and tore down the ratty chain-link fence. It was a cream-colored Buick, older boxy tank model. I recognized it as Betsy, my mother's car when I was a child. I felt a pang of fear, and stood in that doorway and watched. My mother and father were in the car. They looked angry. My father popped the trunk and unloaded a body. He threw it at my feet. It fell there, right where John had died. Facing the same way. He was dead too. The car containing my parents roared away, but I didn't pay it any more attention after I saw the boy at my feet. He was scrawny, his brown hair in a ponytail that was still intact despite his battered appearance. He wore khaki cargo pants, and a faded green jacket. His face was far paler than it should have been. I fell apart. It was Padawan, and he was dead. I cried so hard, I thought it would kill me. I was on the ground, holding him as best I could, and I was alone, not like I'd been earlier. It's been a long time since I felt that emotion in a dream--one of complete and total loss. I wasn't quite sure why I was so torn up over it. Did he mean any more to me than John? Was two just the magic number? We hadn't been on the best of terms, had we? No, he hadn't really looked at me since before summer. We'd tactfully avoided each other. We had either ignored or forgotten the parts of us that cared for each other. I had told myself that we wouldn't be friends like that again, long before all this happened. Whatever closeness we'd had was long gone. But I was shattered by his body, and I shook with sobs, and as I rocked with my arms around his shoulders, a few strands of hair were dislodged from the ponytail and fell across his face. It was that vibrant. It was that real.
I stood up at some point, and went back inside, but not for long, and I'm not sure what I did while I was inside. When I returned, I was composed. Padawan was still there, and his hair was short and he seemed so much taller and heavier than he'd been when I held him moments before. He was wearing the same clothes, except for the jacket. It had been switched for an unbuttoned button-up shirt over a white t-shirt. I nudged him with my foot. "Don't be dead," I said. Or maybe it was, "Why did you die?" It was something to that effect. Something simple, that I could remember after I'd woken up.
He moved, stretching cautiously on the ground. "I'm not dead...no, I don't think so...I'm okay..." I heard his voice, like it sounded when he first woke up...but also kind of like he'd just been hit in the stomach with something very heavy. He was alive, somehow.
If I'd fallen apart before, it was nothing compared to the way I reacted this time. I yelled, I cried, and I cursed and sobbed and said, "You're alive, oh my god, you're alive...I can't believe you're alive..." I danced and jumped and laughed and tears were just coursing down my face. I had lost all control. I knew, somewhere in my head, that he didn't give a damn about me and he'd rather I not be there, hugging him and cursing at him and laughing and crying. I knew that he didn't care how I felt about his life or death. I knew that he was probably angry at me for being there, for waking him, or for disturbing whatever reverence he had found...but...I didn't care. I didn't care what he thought about me, celebrating his return. I didn't care if he ever spoke to me again. I was just thankful that he lived. I wanted nothing more than to know that he lived. That was enough.
I woke up here for another coughing fit, and dozed once more before I gave up on sleep. This time, I was spending time with Nick Carissimi, who had a goatee and was watching movies in his ground-level apartment. His other friends, including the friend who had brough me, had all left and we were just watching a movie and talking a little bit. I hate it when I dream about getting Nick's approval. It's just like my subconscious is telling me that I really do care, when I put up such a big mental campaign to myself of why I should hate the bastard, and why I don't care what he thinks anyway. There was also something in this about bettas. Maybe I was dreaming of my poor lost Fish. And Chrissy was someplace, where they allowed me to take my dog in, and she was in a class or teaching a class or accepting the Nobel Peace Prize or something. Genetically engineering dragons, or something.
I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep again, what with the coughing and dead people in my head that shouldn't be dead. I'd had a dream the previous night where Sheena had died, and I had to be the one to tell Jessie about it. That was lame. Anyway, dreams suck, I was seriously shaken about the part of the dream where Padawan was dead, and I was coughing like crazy. So I went outside and had a cigarette.
I don't know what time it was, but it was still quite dark. The cigarette was nice. The night was nice as well. There was something about the night air, and the memory of nightmares fresh in my mind, and the very few cars on the road that brought back memories of similar times - times where life was better, or worse, I'm not sure which...but definitely familiar. Like family. The whole scenario was like a family member I hadn't seen in a while. I though about texting--oh, but I changed my mind. I walked the sidewalks and some of the road. Then I went inside and picked out a movie.
It was Peter Pan. the Mary Martin version. Even the Raisinets commercial in the beginning is like an old friend. I felt sick, tired, miserable, and okay nonetheless.
Morning was vaguely pleasant. I felt like shit, but there were friends around, and none of them dead.
Tonight, we took pictures of the ghosts in the house. There really was one behind me. Just like I thought.