More dreams
We're leaving the city. There are around a dozen of us, all of varying ages and genders, and we have nothing but our clothes. I hope my red coat will be warm enough, and it is--strangely warm, given the force of the wind and the grey brightness of the sky.
The first gate opens onto endless, winding roads, like an empty spaghetti junction with no markings and no cars. We struggle onwards over the grey tarmac, toward the second gate. The wind beats at us. I feel I should be cold, but I am not.
The gaps between us all are getting wider as the road goes on. My sister and I are at the back of the group, she in orange, I in red. The old woman in front of us is wearing a coat like mine. The wind is rising. I think of the fragility of her limbs.
We reach the second gate, a high-arched double door set into a long black wall. I have become aware that beyond this wall is a nothingness; that the second gate will take us to another place, like areas in a computer game, not one continuous path but rather two separate points, joined despite their distance.
We are the last through the gates. And when we enter this new plane, another long road just as grey and winding as the last, we are suddenly alone. It is the wind. It is so strong I can barely stand, so strong that I know the others have been blown onto other roads, or away into the void.
There is no way we can continue. It is like trying to walk into a wall of solid air. And I know, too, that the old woman is out there somewhere, and her red coat will not protect her now. I should help her, I think, but instead I put my arms around my sister's shoulders, and together we turn back toward in the city, with a strange and mutual knowledge that we have somehow failed.
The first gate opens onto endless, winding roads, like an empty spaghetti junction with no markings and no cars. We struggle onwards over the grey tarmac, toward the second gate. The wind beats at us. I feel I should be cold, but I am not.
The gaps between us all are getting wider as the road goes on. My sister and I are at the back of the group, she in orange, I in red. The old woman in front of us is wearing a coat like mine. The wind is rising. I think of the fragility of her limbs.
We reach the second gate, a high-arched double door set into a long black wall. I have become aware that beyond this wall is a nothingness; that the second gate will take us to another place, like areas in a computer game, not one continuous path but rather two separate points, joined despite their distance.
We are the last through the gates. And when we enter this new plane, another long road just as grey and winding as the last, we are suddenly alone. It is the wind. It is so strong I can barely stand, so strong that I know the others have been blown onto other roads, or away into the void.
There is no way we can continue. It is like trying to walk into a wall of solid air. And I know, too, that the old woman is out there somewhere, and her red coat will not protect her now. I should help her, I think, but instead I put my arms around my sister's shoulders, and together we turn back toward in the city, with a strange and mutual knowledge that we have somehow failed.