Narrative of my dream last night.
è come questo: Last night I dreamt I was in a courtyard, watching a reenactment of a massacre that supposedly happened a few days before september eleventh. The people who were being shot were dressed all in black and faced the walls. The actors playing the killers shot them (I couldn't tell in my dream if they were actually shooting the reenactors or not) one by one in a row. Some people tried to escape, but they were surrounded, caught, and had thier fingers cut off with scissors. The leader ordered that they be locked in a dark room to fester and die. Somehow, the spectators of the reenactment became part of it, as happens in dreams, and I found myself facing a wall, waiting for my turn to be shot, or pretend to be shot, and I wasn't sure if I would know how to die or not, but as an actor I felt part of the moment. I was afraid. I was with a friend of mine that I knew in high school, and haven't spoken to for several years. There was a Native American drawing of a salmon on the wall, and I said, "Maybe Salmon will protect us," but I didn't think so because I had never given anything to the salmon spirit, other than a grateful enjoyment of his meat at dinnertime, so I just waited.
When the killers came to us, a woman in charge looked at me and said I would be the one person spared. I felt it was malicious, not a gift, because she wanted me to live with the guilt of the survivor. I said, "No, let Sarah (my friend) be the one to go," but Sarah wanted me to live. We argued with each other, and we were crying, because each of us wanted the other to live, and the woman grew impatient. We had to decide or both die. So I went. Why did I go? I don't know why it was me and not Sarah. She was bawling. I kissed her cheeks and told her I loved her, because in that moment she was my best friend. I walked out of the courtyard. I leaned against a wall and cried while I waited for the reenactment to be over, and there was woman standing next to me. I thought she was judging me for spending tears on a silly game, on a play, a movie. But I was moved by the suffering of people who were originally shot and killed.
And then I entered the body of the first woman, the actual one who was spared, in the past, in the original. After she had left the courtyard, she was to get on a plane back to the states, and she was supposed to tell the intelligence networks what happened, because, since everyone died, there was no one left to tell the tale but her. That, was of course, the whole reason they let her live, so she could tell the story to her people (the enemy) and they would feel the fear and doom of victims. She got on the plane and found there a woman who had also survived. The woman said she'd fought her way out, that she had killed many of the people who were trying to kill her. I didn't trust this woman. I got off the plane. I symbolically denied both sides of whatever the battle was. I was on my own, guilty and alive. How does one live with survival guilt?
When the killers came to us, a woman in charge looked at me and said I would be the one person spared. I felt it was malicious, not a gift, because she wanted me to live with the guilt of the survivor. I said, "No, let Sarah (my friend) be the one to go," but Sarah wanted me to live. We argued with each other, and we were crying, because each of us wanted the other to live, and the woman grew impatient. We had to decide or both die. So I went. Why did I go? I don't know why it was me and not Sarah. She was bawling. I kissed her cheeks and told her I loved her, because in that moment she was my best friend. I walked out of the courtyard. I leaned against a wall and cried while I waited for the reenactment to be over, and there was woman standing next to me. I thought she was judging me for spending tears on a silly game, on a play, a movie. But I was moved by the suffering of people who were originally shot and killed.
And then I entered the body of the first woman, the actual one who was spared, in the past, in the original. After she had left the courtyard, she was to get on a plane back to the states, and she was supposed to tell the intelligence networks what happened, because, since everyone died, there was no one left to tell the tale but her. That, was of course, the whole reason they let her live, so she could tell the story to her people (the enemy) and they would feel the fear and doom of victims. She got on the plane and found there a woman who had also survived. The woman said she'd fought her way out, that she had killed many of the people who were trying to kill her. I didn't trust this woman. I got off the plane. I symbolically denied both sides of whatever the battle was. I was on my own, guilty and alive. How does one live with survival guilt?