1998 december 07

nightmare

i had the most horrible dream last night.

there was quite a lot to it, involving all manner of climbing and clambering over rocks and up waterfalls and all that sort of nonsense that makes so much sense in dreams and so little when you try to explain it afterwards. i was there, as was gene and also any number of other people that i seemed to know well but upon waking reflection, don't know at all.

after all the climbing and adventuring, gene and i were in a giant mansion of a house and for whatever reason he had to attach a light fixture/art piece to a column. he had just pounded it into place when suddenly instead of standing on the floor as he had been, he was standing on the edge of a balcony, and with one small step backwards, he disappeared.

i remember standing there in utter shock, thinking i could not have possibly seen what i had seen, thinking there was no way gene had fallen off the balcony, but at the same time, i was filled with a sense of surreal inevitability in the face of this disaster. it is a feeling i have had several times in dreams and a few times in real life, the sudden calm and acceptance that comes with knowing things are beyond your control and will play out whether you want them to or not, the deep rooted feeling of "of course this is what it feels like", whether that feeling is my own death from gunshot [dream] or near death from almost driving off a cliff as a teenager [real life].

in the dream, it was quiet, too quiet, for what seemed like a minute or longer. then there was a dull thud and the floor shook, just a little. i walked slowly to the edge and dropped to my belly, slithering forward until i could see over the edge, even though i knew i didn't want to see what was down there. i saw gene sprawled out, his upper body on some sort of brocade couch that must have broken his fall, but before i could sigh with relief that he had landed somewhere soft, i realized that from the great height he had fallen, landing half on and half off a couch was probably worse than not landing on it at all. then he twitched.

it is the twitch i cannot shake, even now. it was so obviously not a good twitch but rather a life is leaving twitch.

i woke up in a complete panic and reached for gene, only to find myself alone in the bed. my heart thumping and my legs barely working, i stumbled into the living room, where he sat, quite alive and quite well, doing some work on a spreadsheet.

"what's wrong, baby? what're you doing up?"

"i had a bad dream. i dreamed that you died." i was almost crying.

"come here, you silly, girl, i'm not dead. you're not going to get rid of me that easily."

even with his hugs and kisses, i was inconsolable. i grabbed one of the afghans off the chair and curled up at his feet.

"you're going to freeze down there. c'mon, let me take you back to bed."

"no, i'm fine. you keep working. i just want to lay here with you for a while and listen to you work. then i'll know you're alive."

so i slept on the floor, covered in an afghan, using gene's feet for a pillow. amazingly, he still loves me.

vowing never to eat nachos before bed again, claire