Dream Journal
The world was quite different than it is now, though I couldn’t explain how. The people acted different, the air felt different. Like the world was moving on.
I was at a pet store looking for collars for my dogs Max and Chile. The store attendant went looking for some, and pulled off of the very highest, dustiest shelf a large plastic package. Inside were many weird things to be sold in a pet shop, one of which was a dog collar made of paper ribbon: the stuff used to wrap presents. It was light blue and the ends were curled. I asked the attendant if she had anything else, and she didn’t. I decided to put an old belt around Max’s neck and the ribbon on Chile.
Back home, I was talking with someone and could hear the dogs fighting pretty nastily. I was asked to do something about it, so I went in search of my dogs. Even though I could distinctly hear them fighting, I could not find them no matter how hard I looked. The house was filled with a lot of people as if for a party. But this was no party - because the world was moving on, all of these people now lived in the same house. I wasn’t panicking, but I desperately needed to find the dogs.
All of a sudden something happened that posed immediate danger on everyone in the house. People started panicking, and I ran outside. There is where I found my mother; I needed to get her to safety. She was standing by a bunch of large bushes, and I tried to coax her towards the garden. She was acting dumb - as if she had grown so senile that she didn’t know who she was and didn’t care. I lead her by the hand towards the large garden that was placed up against a large stone wall covered in ivy.
As we neared the garden, we passed through what looked like the home and garden center of Kmart. A girl standing there suggested that we grab a chair. I thought that a wonderful idea and grabbed two - one for my mom and one for me. The chairs were peach and had large cushions on them. The one I grabbed for mom was a lounging chair, while the one I grabbed for myself was merely and upright chair. I gave mom the chair I had grabbed for her and took a hold of her hand again.
Then it was night and I was in a dirty nook in the forest and offered myself to a man. My dreaming self knew who he was, though my waking self does not. I was wearing a long, heavy, and dirty skirt. He took me and we had brief sex - this was our first sexual experience with the other. I left him and went through the trees and came into a desolate area, almost like the town square. All of the surrounding buildings were crumbling. Almost all of the townspeople were there, all separated into family clans.
I found my family and ran to them. My mother, father, and sister looked nothing like my family in my waking life, but my dreaming self thought nothing of it. My parents were both in their mid- or late- thirties, and my sister was a few years younger than I. There was an air of urgency within the family to leave the area. When we finally decided to go, the man with whom I had just had sex with appeared and asked my little sister to marry him. I was furious because I had thought he and I were going to marry - but he probably wanted a virgin for his wife to ensure he would be the father of her children. I was very upset, but couldn’t share my reasons with my family in fear of being cast out. This man came with us when we left, him being my sister’s fiancé and all.
We were driving in a suburban-type vehicle away from our home and towards something hopefully better. My mother was driving, my father sitting behind her and to my right, my sister in the front passenger seat, I in the middle back seat, and my sister’s fiancé to my left. The steering wheel was on the right side of the car. We were driving up a hill, and as the road took a sharp left turn, a fiercely strong wind began to blow and shake the suburban up a bit. We continued our climb and the wind got worse. It was as though something or someone was trying to keep us from the top of the hill.
The wind had a white hue to it, as though it were fog blowing at us instead of clear wind. While doing her best to keep us on the right path, my mother aloud wondered what in the world was doing this to us. Then the wind became even stronger, picking up the suburban and holding it in place ten feet or so above ground. After a few moments my father piped up with what he was certain was the answer: cotton. The cotton was blowing us around and that’s why we were above ground: the cotton had piled up underneath us.
As the rest of the family pondered on this suggestion, I knew how silly and incorrect it was. I suggested quite loudly that everyone bail out of the vehicle as soon as possible. We opened the doors and all jumped out. At that time, the wind abruptly quit and the suburban landed on the ground with a loud band. We ran away from the vehicle as fast as we could. As we were going, I turned and yelled something about my dogs. Max and Chile were still in the suburban and I was worried that they would be injured. But my father grabbed me and pulled me along with the rest of the family; there was no time to go back.
We were now in a different city and it was still nighttime. The skyline of this new city was very impressive, similar to that of any large city like New York or Los Angeles. I looked up and pointed out the starts to the family. They were in very obvious and large constellations. Over one building was the constellation of a red bull with two horns and a ring in its nose. It looked very familiar to me. Then the bull started moving and running, and a cowboy constellation (uncolored) appeared and started wrestling with it. I was in awe at this spectacle. I got all excited when I realized I knew what constellation it was that we were seeing. I grabbed my sister’s fiancé, standing to my right, and told him the significance of the bull and cowboy - it was very important and I was very proud to know it.
We walked into a busy restaurant for a bite to eat. The line was pretty long though we waited for a very short time. A waiter came and got us. There were tables crowding the place and it appeared as though they were all full; there were tables and booths right up to the edge of the entryway. We stepped out of the entryway and stood in between a booth and a table. I looked over into the bar and saw a room full of empty tables. Right there by another person’s booth, the waiter asked if he could take our order. I found it odd that he would do this before seating us. I hadn’t the chance to look at a menu and was trying to find one on a nearby table to grab. I saw one underneath a little girl’s plate, but I couldn’t read it and it would be ride to just take it.
Then we were in the room full of empty tables; the family was sitting down at a large round table near the wall and I remained standing. I asked the waiter where the other family had gone, the one that was sitting at this very table; they had been the only people in this room. Neither he nor anyone else in my family knew of whom I spoke. I sat in a chair facing the wall between my father and my sister’s fiancé.
From the opposite corner of the room came a large bat. It landed on my sister’s back and attacked her with its wings. She freaked out and her fiancé grabbed it and tossed it to the floor. It lay there unmoving as if it were dead. Everyone but me turned back to the table. I watched as the bat became outlined in red and rose up to attack again. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t.
Themes: End of the World