"Do you want to get your hair cut?" I ask myself. I am in Israel, and my friends here are human and all too human. They are asking me questions but I am hardly listening, instead I wander a ways into an amber field. I'm afraid someone is going to shoot me.
I remember one of them asking something, I think my mother was on the phone, and she wanted to take me to a Chinese restaurant, she wanted the whole family to gather, just to go to a Chinese restaurant. And I was thinking, yes, a Chinese restaurant, those are familiar places, I would like to go there, where there is jade and jasmine, yes, even in the middle of my vacation in Israel.
But meantime, its time for some sightseeing. Except I'm not really in Israel. I'm in New Haven, Connecticut. Its just that I'm watching a confusing performance which asks me to see myself in several places at once.
We are following a trail up a gleaming red rockface. There are several signatures carved into the rocks. I think I might want to carve my own signature, only I don't have a chisel. Near the summit, many folks are crouching, idling around as though this were heaven on earth.
It is day, and I can see back down the cliff-face there are a number of figures crowded over the brink, gesticulating in a very American fashion at what I learn are Russians, who I cannot see, who I suppose are on a similar journey, as though this were a dance. As I go to join them, or at least gather more information, I suddenly realize we are on a ship, and it is night.
As the ship thrusts through the dark, piercing lights reveal that many young women are hanging for dear life onto ladder-like structures suspended over the inimical waters Suddenly I feel that I am one of them, and I recognize one of the women as a friend of mine.
The lights keep grazing her eyes. She twists her head away from the glare. She's frantic. "You're going to go blind" says an insistent voice, again and again. And then an especially bright light crosses her eyes like a bar-code scanner, she lets go with one hand to cover her face. Her fingers are slipping. Suddenly, she shreaks into the abyss.
But we could not hear her go, as if she were the only one listening.
Then I wake up.
--Febr. 9, 2006
Dream Stories Main
The preceding, as well as all other parts of Nathan's Philosophy and Writing are pending copyright (c) 2006, Nathan Coppedge