Quickly Forgotten
“That is a blessing of bad dreams, they are quickly forgotten.”
―
I was awakened this morning by my wife, who was calling to me and telling me to wake up. Her voice came to me as if from very far away, and I was fighting, kicking my way to the surface, out of the blackness of sleep and the frightening dream that was trying to pull me back down. I had been trying to awaken myself for what seemed like an hour, trying to yell and startle myself into the waking world, but only able to manage a thin whimper. As soon as my wife heard me, she awakened me, knowing this to be my pattern, trying to rouse myself when I am having a bad dream. When I opened my eyes, she was there, and Jinx was there, and they were both watching me with concern. What a thing it is to come up out of a horror and see the eyes of those who love you.
Even now the dream is fading, but I wanted to set it down before it melts, because I am perplexed as to just why it was frightening to me.
I was on a road not too far from our home, a road near a state park my wife and I have visited. In the dream, the road was much longer and loopier than in real life, like a dirt version of a rollercoaster track, winding through the green humps of hills and turning back on itself. I was walking down the road when I noticed a turnoff to the left. I followed the turnoff and came to an enormous old-fashioned railroad trestle constructed of massive timbers. There was no water beneath the trestle, but the drop below was deep, breathtaking. I could smell the creosote on the wood.
There was a girl in the dream, who seemed like a girl with whom I work, but I really don’t think it was her. She was currying a chestnut horse who was tied to one of the timbers and neither she nor the horse seemed to notice me there. I had the impulse to jump up and grab hold of one of the timbers above me, and as is the way in dreams, I soared without effort up and latched on. I began doing some sort of awe-inspiring gymnastics routine, ala Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, thinking to myself, “How am I doing this?”
I dropped back down onto the railroad ties beneath the trestle and stood very still, listening and feeling for the approach of a train, but detected nothing. I looked over at the horse and the girl, but the girl was gone. The horse never looked at me, but he looked up in the direction of where I had been hanging and doing the gymnastic feats. I followed his gaze
Instead of the timber framework, there was now a plain ceiling above me. In the center of the ceiling was a large snowflake, like the oversized ornaments one sees at Christmastime. It was probably six feet across, attached to the ceiling like those plaster things one sees around chandeliers in antebellum mansions. As I watched it, the snowflake began to turn slowly. I could then see that there were one or two other snowflakes above the first one, and as the first one turned, they fanned out like a deck of magician’s cards, revealing all the blades and spokes of the ones beneath.
The flakes continued turning slowly, and as I stared, a sense of the deepest and most powerful evil began emanating from them. They never changed in appearance, never emitted a sound, never threatened to drop loose from the ceiling and buzz-saw me…but I knew the flakes were evil, that they were aware of my presence, and that they meant me harm. I knew that if I did not get away, they would find a way to hurt or even kill me. I tried to run, but as in dreams, I was rooted to the spot.
At this point, I became somewhat aware that this was a dream and that I needed to wake up and wake up now. I began trying to scream, but no sound came out. I filled my lungs and tried again with all my might, and this time a muffled sound, like a kitten under a cake glass, came forth. Again and again I tried to scream myself awake, and all the while the flakes kept turning, and the sense of evil grew to the point where I could taste it, like the aftertaste of citrus pith, and my heart felt as if it would shatter from fear, and…
… I heard my wife calling me, and I opened my eyes and saw her watching me with love and concern in her eyes, and I saw Jinx staring at me with curiosity, and I knew I was safe and away from the flakes.
And now I have spent the first portion of my day trying to determine why a set of large plastic snowflakes on the ceiling of a train trestle would evoke such terror in me.
Perhaps it is a good thing that I rarely remember my dreams. And as I already noted, this one is beginning to melt away already. Like a snowflake on a fevered brow.
~ S.K. Orr
