I had a bad dream last night...

[note] I posted this on 1 June 2006. It is the final PD post from the old site. From this point on, all content is New and/or Improved!!!

So I had a bad dream.. ordinarily that isn't anything special to write about, but this one was so vivid as to be lifelike. It was quite disturbing, and left me feeling very sad and guilty all day. My wife wasn't in it, which was also odd, but again, not unusual.

The dream took place in a war... it seemed like a civil war with Americans fighting Americans. It picked up with me meeting a petite girl with light hair in a small town that had been shelled. She was either dirty blonde, or red haired, with stunning eyes, lithe, petite and full of an energy that was irresistable. She was also a soldier on the other side.

Somehow, we had both gotten trapped in this small town when the artillary and tanks from my side started shelling the artillary and tanks on her side. Then her side returned fire, and I, a sniper in the town was caught in the crossfire and took refuge in a burned out building. She found her way there, and after a few tense moments, we began talking. I think we were both just too tired of the fighting to really want to harm the other, or maybe it was the fact that we we were both utterly alone, trapped in this small town with shells and rockets arcing overhead, occasionally hitting a building or house near us.

During my dream, for the next several days we crawled from building to building, hiding as best we could, avoiding the areas where the most shelling seemed to be occuring, and as the days wore on, we fell in love. This is where it really got weird, as the feelings I had for her in my dream felt so very real, so intense, that when I woke, I felt as thought I had lost her. But it got worse after that.

After the 4 or 5 days, we finally managed to get to a point where we could get out of the town safely and back to each others respective sides. We promised each other that we would leave the war and run off together to somewhere peaceful to live, instead of killing and fighting every day in some war that neither of us could remember why it started, or what it was about.

The next part of my dream, after she and I left to return to our sides and prepare to run off and meet up, showed her, my comrade, my beauty, lying on a table, barely conscious. My best friend was there, and he looked over his shoulder at me, then back to her, and slowly and forcefully, he slit her belly open from side to side and top to bottom, spilling her guts out.

I still remember her screams as she woke to this horriffic death... I remember the pleading look and the confusion in her beautiful eyes as she looked at me. I remember wanting to stop it, to save her, to do something, and yet just standing there as though I was standing in tar. I remember trying to scream, but no sound coming from my mouth, as though my mind wanted to scream and jump into action to protect her, to save her, but my body would not obey.

Next I was in a house, long after the war, depressed, bitter and hounded by reporters covering the war who constantly hounded me, asking me what it was like to stand there while she died so horribly and do nothing. People asking me how I could sleep knowing that the woman I fell in love with was being brutally murdered right there before me and yet I did nothing. I woke with a start and a gasp, and have felt endless remorse all day...

It is one thing to have a shitty dream like that, it is another entirely to have one, and then feel all the real guilt in reality all day long. I told Dana about it this morning... she was sympathetic, but I dont know what it all means. Taken literally (it WAS rather vivid and realistic) it means we are in for some very unpleasant times in the near future. Taken symbolically, I dont know what it means. Maybe it is just a subconsious wake up call telling me that I can not afford to be sedentary... that I must never stop moving, that I must always make a stand, that I must always fight for those who need defending.

I dont know, and I may never know for sure, but maybe one day it will become clear to me. Until then, I can only say that I am sorry that I didn't defend her, that I didn't move when she needed me most, and live with the knowledge that inaction can be as bad as action.