9.1.10
(My brother Austen is an army ranger stationed in Iraq. His deployment is scheduled to conclude in late November, and he is slated to be wed to his new sweet bride on NYE 2010.)
My brother had returned home from Iraq, to be married soon. I found myself at the curbside of a huge stone library with gothic architecture and large roman pillars across the front of it, giving it the appearance of a grand old judiciary building. A gala was to be held there in his honor, and there was a line of people snaking down the street making their way to it.
It was the beginning of the event. I made my way inside to a huge celebration hall with almost unnaturally high vaulted ceilings of cream and beige. Tables with white linens and shiny wooden chairs were scattered throughout the room. Austen was sitting in one such chair in the middle of the room, leaning back and forth in his seat with a look of casual disinterest. I wanted to give him a magical amulet that I have worn in the past. I looked around his neck and saw that he was wearing a different amulet already. Relieved that he didn’t already have the one I planned to give, I released the thought and the mood shifted.
I opted to get out of the hall for a while and walked down the street to a beautiful old bar. Inside the bar it was cozy and warm, the décor very old world and elegant. I sat and after a time the bartender brought me a partially filled bottle and a glass. I relaxed there on an old wooden barstool with a comfy black top for a while, before noticing that the bottle had mold growing in it. I brought the bottle back to the tender and alerted him to the mold, saying that at that point I didn’t have proper time to enjoy a casual drink anyway. I asked him to make me a hot lemon water with honey instead. He complied and I took my leave back to the line to enter the gala.
This is where it grows stranger…
As I stood in line, I became aware of a woman standing behind me. She had blond fuzzy shoulder length hair, and she was in some sort of rage directed at me. She seemed insistent that I had slighted her in some way, as though my very manner of being independent of her was utterly offensive to her. The more I assured her that I meant her no harm or injury, and was perfectly content to just stand in line peacefully, the more her malaise seemed to fester. Finally I found myself reasoning again and again “can’t you just be nice, please? I’ve done nothing to you and mean you no harm. I have no quarrel with you, let us drop the whole thing and start fresh.” This seemed to have little effect. It was as though she was embodying some sort of fighting demon force.
The line started moving and I had to cross the street with her behind me shouting slurs and insisting I wanted to fight her in some way. My eyes narrowed as I saw a bus approaching the intersection we had just crossed. I turned to her, feeling annoyance start to rise in me. My intention became to quickly show her that my strength far outweighed hers, logic being that she would then leave me alone. I picked her up by the neck with one arm and dangled her over the curb into the street. The bus was coming up about 50 feet away in the same lane.
She struggled for a moment, and then to my surprise her eyes went black and her mouth fell agape. As I held her in my grasp she began to shrink and howl- like some kind of mythic banshee. Her body went slack and her eyes grew completely black and sunken. She seemed to partially dissipate- her weight decreased and she seemed to become more shadow than matter.
I immediately pulled her away from danger and tried to console her, but to no avail. Some sort of chemical change had occurred, and she was distraught and hysterical. I had the sensation that I had underestimated my power and thus over-shot my aim- a common element in my dreamscape. I felt the weight of my perceived error. The experience shocked me and jarred my dream recall abilities.
Next I knew time had progressed a little further into the night, and her family had proclaimed a vendetta to the death upon me. I was fleeing this eventuality, and ran into a large suburban house to my brother Grey’s room on the top floor. I hid under his comforter in the corner and watched through a tiny slit in the blankets. I was alert for the appearance of the ankles or feet of the demon family that would spell my doom.
Grey’s demeanor was unflappable. As he reclined on his bed staring into a computer screen, he insisted that the family wasn’t really trying to kill me. He said it was obvious that they were just trying to extort money from me by creating this situation. He said “Everybody has a price, Ris. How much did they ask for?” To which I replied “Nothing, they really just seem to want to kill me, but it makes sense that we may be able to pay them off.” I felt my sense of danger subside thanks to Grey’s chill and matter of fact demeanor. The threat seemed to pass and the dream dissolved.
The sunken eyed visage of the woman I threatened followed me around for a couple of days after this dream. It was very haunting, and I have found myself mulling over and pulling apart aspects of the symbolism of this dream for weeks and months after.
