Dark Dream

I had a dark dream that woke me up at about 5:30 this morning. What I remember had the feeling of a mixture from the movies I Am Legend, The Wizard of Oz, and O Brother Where Art Thou?. Very Tim Burton-esque in quality. The scene I remember most is as follows:

I am a kid, dirty and in overalls. I may be a boy. My "father" was John Goodman, but bigger and mean, wearing all white, as if an orderly or something. Something bad was about to happen- a nasty storm on the horizon. The house is made of wood, aged, deteriorating. Outside there is orange light. I look out the window at dark black clouds, empty fields with dark mud. There are no birds in the sky, no wind, only telephone poles stand out against the orange light. There is an impeding sense to avoid John Goodman, as he is angry, and as I said before...mean. I close my eyes. Whatever is on the horizon comes, fast, with motion, but quietly. When I open my eyes I am the only one around. I stick my arm out the window to catch what appears to be snow. Big fluffy bunches of cotton like snow. But as I look closer I realize it is black, it covers my hands, and instead of snow, it is ash. Outside there are small fires, tiny, but numerous. John Goodman is coming. He is still angry. I have to gather the rest of the family, my siblings, younger than me, hiding. I didn't know how we were going to run across the fields, they were littered with patches of glowing embers and we had no shoes.

I woke up quickly. Very odd. I have no sense of blackness in my immediate life. In fact, things are good, with more good pending. But, I have a lingering sense of anxiousness, a need to leave the house today. The feeling of the ash in my hand is still with me. It was like a paper ball, it crinkled in sound, but completely fell away as I handled it. It left a mess on my hands.

Strange, very opposite of the current reality of my life, or childhood.

Chew it up, spit it out.



Picture by D. Parrish