Last Night's Dream

I’m in a desert of milky coloured sand, across which are arranged perfect dunes in evenly spaced lines, splitting the land like a vast tilled sandy field. I’m with a girl, who I don’t know, and whose features I can’t recall save her absolutely black hair. We climb to the top of a dune, and we realise our peril. Advancing over the dunes is an army stretching from horizon to horizon, and, this being a dream, it does not strike me as odd that the army appears to be early era Star Wars – tens of thousands of bright white Storm Troopers, countless marching war machines, shooting those improbable bolts of coloured light in an arch over our heads. Seeing that the pace of the advance is greater than our ability to outrun it, we agree to lay low on the lee-side of the dune, and hope that a) we are not the target and b) we will go unnoticed. Luckily for us, and now revealed, a rebel army of equal size awaits, hidden on the slope, the onset of the Empire, all dressed in capes of various greens and browns and wearing the soft-sided helmets so prized by the Ewoks. They rise, and advance past my companion and I, apparently oblivious to our presence. Presumably, the Rebels had the greater might of arms, for we did not see the Empire again.

The Empire’s disappearance may be because the dream either ended, or moved to a different place instantly, but memory in dreams is not to be trusted. Still, I assume it was the same dream, as I had with me my anonymous colleague, whose face I can’t recall. Also, we are in the same desert, only this time a large silver building is in front of us, bulbous, glass and chrome. We go in the only door. Inside it is ramshackle and dusty, like a parlour of the Wild West after a century of disuse. Oddly, and in contrast to these surroundings, men in smart business suits are sat around the rough wooden table, staring gravely at us. It becomes clear that I need to look for someone, another girl, and that this is a task I should have done by now and time is running out.

“It’s not her,” says one, pointing at the girl next to me. And all I can see is blackness. The man looks to a filthy window, through which I see the shadow of a person. The shadow moves, and is gone, and the meeting of men begin issuing directives and clues to where to look to find her. But I can’t do anything, for at that moment, by nose begins to bleed. Slowly at first, so that I can feel just a warm dribble on my lip, then with ever greater force. Soon I am covered in blood, and still it blasts out like a hydrant. If only I could stem the flow, I could take heed of the earnest advice around me and go and complete my task.

I’m underwater (in a new dream, apparently). The colour of it suggests that it is a deep, tropical sea – all clear, royal blue. I am just far enough under the water to see the bright sunlight above, which I would call ‘dappled’, if that did not sound too much like a cliché. I can still breathe. Well, I say that, but I have no memory of breathing – yet I am not panicking for air either. I should say, I can still exist. Ahead of me is a baby. I’m not sure if it is a real baby or a doll, as it is not moving, but it and I are floating at the same height, equally buoyant on some unseen gradient of salinity.

The baby explodes. Not like a bomb, there are no flashes of flame. Rather as if the baby is made of glass, an empty shell with painted features whose rising interior pressure proves too much. Nor is it sudden; a brake is upon the expansion, stronger than the viscosity of the water; the shards move with exaggerated slowness. Nonetheless, they are still dangerous – I am unable to move, and great shards are heading inexorably toward me.

Half way between me and the space where the baby once was, it suddenly becomes clear that a great sheet of glass had separated us. I can see no edge to it, up, down, left or right, so it might be, for all I can tell, an endless pane that neatly separates two hemispheres of the World. The remnants of the explosion are peppering the pane, sprawling cracks waxing as it loses its strength. It is, therefore, a race – which will give first? The pane, my only protection, getting weaker with every strike? Or the power of the explosion, dissipating so painfully slowly? The pane proves the stronger. The explosion has spent its fury, and the pane, though spidery with cracks, has kept me safe.

Go figure.