Last night’s dream:

It is late. I’ve been asked to drive a woman to some social gathering. It is located behind a collegiate baseball stadium and down a hill. We arrive at ten.

The walls are marbled black and blue and are so tall that I can’t tell whether there is a ceiling. There are open doorways, but no doors. People in semiformal dress stand near dark wooden tables adorned with weak lamps, munching on hors d’oeuvres, chatting about God-knows-what.

I lose track of the woman, which is fine because this was her event anyway. I meander through the rooms for an hour. I recognize nobody. None of the idle chatter interests me. None of the deeper conversations interest me. I just want to go home and watch the news or read and go to sleep.

I go looking for the woman, in the hopes that she’ll get the hint that I want to leave. I find her talking to a group of elderly women. She sweetly asks if we can stay a while longer. I say that I thought we were leaving at eleven. Before she can give me that pleading look, I say I will stay ‘til twelve; I won’t stay ‘til one.

A while later, I follow her into a room where maybe a hundred people are watching one of the walls. The blue and black marble on that wall is glowing and shifting. There is a deep electrical humming that reminds me of monks chanting. The audience is enthralled.

I’d like to think that I’m watching the viewers to watch their reactions to the changing wall, like psychologists might observe subjects from behind a two-way mirror. Truth is, I am mesmerized, too.

The wall immobilizes us. Bluish lightning shoots from the wall at various people, knocking them down. I can’t look at them on the ground because I can’t move, not even to shift my gaze.

The electrical humming grows louder. The wall speaks. I don’t catch everything it says, but one line stands out: “AND THE THIRD PART OF MAN WOULD BE STRUCK DOWN.”

I can now look around the room, though I have to strain to do so. Sure enough, it looks like about a third of the people in the room have been knocked down. I force myself to look downwards.

The people on the ground have perfectly circular holes in their skulls. There is no blood. Their brains have been pulled through the holes, still attached to the stems and spinal cords. Their brains have turned yellow. A few of the people are still alive.

The wall speaks of the glorious wonders it will bring to the world, and that we will be fortunate to see it.

Over the din, a middle-aged man yells, “Thanks for nothing!”

The marbled wall seems offended at his ingratitude. Lightning lashes out, boring a hole in his skull and tugging his brain out. He collapses.

The patterns in the wall now shift faster, and the room starts to shake. The wind whips up and the humming grows faster and louder and raspier. It is almost deafening. The light grows brighter and blacker. I’m slowly being crushed.

It hasn’t specifically said so, but the wall now seems angry and indignant enough to kill everyone inside the room, and then everyone outside the room. The lightning flashes at people one-by-one. It pierces the skulls of some people. It crushes others. Still others are lassoed and then flung against the marble walls. The lightning incinerates some people.

Between the flash and crack of the lightning, and the roaring wind, and bodies on fire, and the electrical humming, and the angry howling of the wall, I’ve lost track of the woman. I’m bracing for the moment the wall finishes me off.

A man lying on the floor, his brain hanging out of the hole in his skull, screams, “DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS!”

I don’t know what he did, but there is a pop. The events of the evening play backwards in a matter of seconds, all the way back to that serene moment when the woman sweetly asks if we can stay a while longer.

I tersely say “No,” grab her by the arm, and get the hell out of there.

…

I woke up from that dream at four o’clock this morning, absolutely stunned. I walked around my house for about fifteen minutes. I can’t capture what I felt.

One Comment

1. Doctor Hmnahmna Says:

Do you normally dream in apocalyptic imagery? You are either a prophet, or you need to get me some of that stuff.

April 22nd, 2008 at 8:02 am