Unborn, Undying

What Dreams May Come...Must Give Us Pause

Well I was certainly given pause by this one. Let me know what you think.

The dream starts on the down escalator of an airport which seems to be in Taiwan. Not sure how I can tell this, but I recall being surrounded by packages labelled in Chinese (yes, I know that Chinese and Taiwanese are different languages, but I knew the difference..somehow). I'm waiting for my luggage to come through airport red-tape with someone who might be my bf, or brother, I can't turn my head to look at him. I'm worried that something in my luggage will set off an alarm or something.
Everywhere, in this large room I'm standing in, are piles and piles of boxes, packages and crates all left here in the process of being confiscated for whatever reasons.

Tired of waiting I begin to look at pictures hanging on the wall off to my left. To my surprise I recognize two of them! One is of my Dad who is pictured leaning in to strap some kids I don't know into their carseats in a minivan. I try to see if I am one of those kids, because my Dad looks waaay younger than he is now, and I don't recognize myself or any of the other kids. I feel a distinct sense of unease at this point - how did the picture get here? Who took it? Where?.

The second picture is of a red, or reddish brown car flying off the broken span of a bridge, that straddles a deep green valley. Printed across the bottom are the words, " In Rememberance of [My Sister], 1986, done in that cheesy gold print lettering. You know the one I'm talking about? Feels like it will peel off at any minute? This is when I really begin to feel disturbed. That's the year my parents were in a car crash in Naivasha in our old brown Toyota Corolla, or was it just my Dad and my brothers and sister? I think the date of the real crash was earlier, because 1986 is also the year I have my first and clearest memories of hating my siblings. I remember feeling frustrated because they would not let me sit with them on the swing outside the house with their friends. I was "too young" to be out there with them, I should go inside and go back to Mummy. I was furious. Me, immature? Did they think I was going to misbehave and embarass them in front of their friends? Lookin back on it I think I had a crush on one of their pals and just wanted to be around them and hear them talk. It rankled then, and still rankles now. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw that picture. Did it also symbolize the 7 Years War brewing between my sister and I? That in itself is fodder for another post.

I took the pictures down so I could ask my folks what the hell these pics were doing in Taiwan. Suddenly, the scene shifts in the dream, and we are flying over a green hills and silvery lakes. I feel that we are in Africa now - in Nigeria to be exact. We are on some sort of game flight or something because the other mzungu passengers are talking about gorillas. In Nigeria? I look out the window as they talk about why racist discourse so frequently compares Africans to monkeys. One shouts out, "WM! Do you remember the reasons why they do that?" I say something about connotations of dirt and disease, primitivity and the primal, the almost human-ness of monkeys, the aggression.. The moment I say aggression, the plane just falls out of the sky.

It doesn't crash, nose-dive or spin. It just falls perfectly horizontally and suddenly. At the moment of impact, I unbuckle myself and start running from the plane. The plane has landed in some kind of marsh, shallow lake, or rice paddy, and somehow the other passengers are way ahead of me, running for their lives. They are all making good time, but I am floundering and fighting for every step. I can't tell whether it's because I'm swimming (can't swim worth a damn) or what, but I can't chomoka like those other guys. Everyone else is screaming for me to hurry, and I'm trying thinking that my asthma is going to kill me. Right then I start to hear gunshots.

As I struggle my way out of this paddy, trying to get across the tarmac road to the safety of the houses beyond, I get shot. I fall to the ground. I struggle back up, knowing that if I can get across the road, I will be safe. As I stagger/crawl/scurry for all I'm worth I hear laughter behind me, and see a vehicle pull up behind me, or to the side where I cannot see, and I get shot 2 or 3 times more, right in the chest. I was almost across the road, and would have made it had they not pulled up right then. The gunshots make it impossible to breathe, and as I lay there dying, gasping for my last breath, I see in the distance a shining African city, bursting with life in the light of an African morning (you know the ones, when the sun and greenery just seem to scream with life and energy), and a young boy with two buckets, out to fetch water.

I die, and wake up.

I was freaked out. What the hell was that about?

posted by WM @ 10:46