This morning I woke up around 4:41. Carefully placing the phone down on my side table, thinking to myself, if only three more minutes had passed…
Another restful sleep for me this morning, and there wasn’t much to remember as far as dreaming was concerned. My head hit the pillow too high up when I lay back, and scraped the wall behind me – we don’t have a headboard. Scooting down to find my comfort zone, the dark room welcomed me back from the bathroom, since I was far from ready to give into wakefulness. Closing my eyes and assuming my “Casket” position, the swirling mists that usually come into view, began forming in my mind – something else began churning out of the peripheral of focus. This feeling usually happens when I am consciously trying to remember a dream that is just off to the side in my memory.
The dream started recalling on its own, images flashing like the twinkling of stars, in different parts of the sky. I gave into the sequence, trying to contain my excitement, measuring my breathing and carefully relaxed. This time the dream started playing out in longer parts, strips of film that needed to be connected on the reel so that I could watch. I was able to reconstruct only a few parts; perhaps the transitions in each section were what confused me.
I was with a group of people, we jumped into a brand new vehicle, a Jeep that was colored a deep wine. I could remember the shine and relative flawlessness of the paint reflecting the light. The plot wasn’t clear at the time, escape wasn’t really our motive – more likely it was rescue that was involved. The driver was reckless we had to rescue his daughter, it wasn’t clear if we were in pursuit or just had to make it to the location she was being held quickly, to put our plan into action. This was a Caribbean island, maybe Puerto Rico and we were driving on mountain roads until we reached a particular section close to the sea. Our driver pointed us down the hill and rode us into the beach and into the water. Our destination was across the bay, if we had stuck the to road we wouldn’t have made it past the defenses. The only option for our group was to swim across, using the car as our float.
Surprisingly the car was a great assist in getting us far over the deep portion of the sea; the fort was manned to the gill by land, but there was nothing defending an approach by water. The dark moonless night aided in our stealth, the car took on too much water and began to sink. We swam the rest of the way, at least several hundred yards to the rocky base of the stone brick jetty, climbing up to use the cover of the lower walkway to gain access. The crack of rifle fire above meant our cover was blown, hastily we entered the darkened halls only to realize there was an ambush waiting at the top of the stairs and in several corners. Our group scattered, several side rooms provided cover but without our own firepower we would be pinned down quickly. A shout from above called an advance on our position, noting we had not fired back – that was a big mistake for them.
One of our crew overpowered the first man, taking his rifle and cracking his skull with the butt and whipping around to take out two more that were headed down the stairs. We all joined in now, having three weapons amongst four men we were able to make our way topside to the rampart.
The dream faded out, the fate of the young girl unknown.
Checking the time it was almost an hour later, I wanted to remember as much of the dream as possible. Satisfied that enough detail was firmly gripped in my conscious memory – I fell back to sleep.
The darkness was thick. I was walking on a path blindly, no light to guide me except for a faint knowledge that I had to keep going forward. There was a chill in the air, more like the breath of stones in a crypt. I felt lost, as if this was the literal end of creation, where nothing could exist without consciousness. There was a tree with a low hanging bough just ahead on the path and then another on the opposite side; they were barely visible, and I imagine that whatever message was meant for me created the trees on the path, marking a boundary. Unaware that this was the point at which to stop, I moved forward and a spiderweb caught me across my forehead; this slowed me and then I walked into another, swiping them away from my face.
Becoming annoyed at the strength of the web when I tried pulling it away, finally stopped my momentum, more webs appeared, as if spiders were continuously spinning them in the darkness from within each tree. When pulled tight, they shone briefly, illuminating each strand for a second. I was sure that this was an attempt to snare me so I tried to launch forward again – but a single strand was attached to the middle of my back and yanked me back with the tension of the recoil. My body then froze, like sleep paralysis and I began falling to the ground in slow motion. The ground gave way or I fell off of the path into eternity – the slow motion disoriented me and I anticipated the ground below me and jumped mid-air but kept falling into darkness…
Before I lost “consciousness” I looked up and could see off in the distance an orange sun, glowing in the dark “sky” and thought to myself that the sun wasn’t bright enough to light the night sky… or was it something else.
I passed out in the dream…
I woke up finally. It was 6:20 AM
Gabe Miranda lives a stones throw from uptown Charlotte, enjoys Star gazing and creating chaos on Twitter. Currently working on editing diary posts to self publish his first book.
