I'm sure I'm not alone in my nightmares.
They aren't dreams of fire or of soaring planes. They aren't dreams of crumbling buildings, or of voices of horror calling out to God.
They're simpler, and removed from the kodachromes that have been flipping past my eyes for the past four days. It would seem that my sleeping mind has completely forgotten. I come out of slumber, gasping and afraid, and calm myself with the knowledge that my mind's movie was all just a bad dream. The irony being, of course, that the waking world truly is a nightmare.
They're dreams of things being stolen from me. I come home with my college roommates; we're exhausted with laughter, and we open our door and our home lies in ruins. My couch is tattered, the pictures hang crooked,their glass broken; there's only dust left on the television stand, my new flat screen absent. But it's odd. They stole my stereo's body but left its speaker wings. The DVD player remains housed in its glass cage, but every single CD and DVD is gone. The couch is there, but most of its cushions are either displaced or just missing.
I hear no barking and that's when I realize they've even stolen my dog.
Another dream, this one of docks and lakes. Montego has been traumatized and for some reason won't walk the wooden-planked length back to shore. Instead she wants to take the stairs down into the water. So I run and we jump into the lake. I hear my mother gasp and my feet go down and touch a grassy, seaweed bottom. It's much deeper, too deep. In horror I release her leash and stretch my hands above me searching for sky. When I pop through and breathe deep, the sudden realization that Montego's been drug down by her heavy retractable leash sends me back under. I go down and find her, her little legs paddling against the weight of the handle pushing her down. I push up, and fight against disorientation and the weight of water to unhook her. I drown trying to save her.
Other night visions are filled with panic over being lost. I'm with Miranda and we're at a fair, flying around and around on the swingset made for grown-ups. When it's time to leave, to go find my dad who brought us to the fair, we can't get back. Again, there are docks. This time they're a maze, laid flat on crocodile infested waters. We go around and around, never breaking through. We climb rope ladders and walk tightropes in this mixed-up fair. But there's no catharsis.
There are other stories that play out - ones of hopelessness or just little things going wrong. The server completely ignoring us at the restaurant, sending over replacements who never return. The bad dates or mix-ups. The creepy neighbor who wants to burn me with his cigarette, his dirty nails digging into my forearm.
It doesn't take Freud to figure out what most of my dreams mean. I'm in anguish, over my helplessness, and just over the unreal horror. I just don't know what to do. Does anyone? I just watch the stories over and over. I cling to the sound of Peter Jennings' voice.
This morning he's in a studio filled with children, trying to answer their questions. I wish he could answer mine.
The notify is still here.