Nightmare 7/8/2016

I died during a nightmare. It’s never happened before.

One caveat: I almost never dream about myself. Likewise, 99% of my dreams unfold in imaginary places, made-up cities, ruins, worlds. However, last night was different. I dreamed about the A&M campus (where I work), and I was Darcie. So here’s the dream. FYI, this post is a diary entry, not a piece of creative fiction. Hard to tell with me sometimes …

Anyway, I’m about to describe a nightmare, so proceed with caution. No gore. Themes of death. Possibly boring. Bananas are bananas. Etc.

I was walking to work: quarter mile trudge down a straight sidewalk, the world bright, green grass and cloudless sky. A warm day in Texas.

I kept thinking of Fire and Ice, that poem by Robert Frost. It’s one of my favorites, so no wonder the lines slipped into my dreams, my subconscious.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.

Over and over, I repeated those four lines. Some say the world will end in fire. Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. Some say the world will end in fire.

I saw a dead woman lying near the road. On her back, eyes closed, twenty-something years old. She’d been forgotten. There’d been an incident in the parking garage. Lots of students had been murdered. She was a victim, one the emergency crew failed to rescue or carry away. Why her?

I had to get to work. No time to linger.

In real life, my office is on the ninth floor, but in my dream, it was high, so high, as if I’d ascended a skyscraper. My window overlooked the campus. A sonic boom cracked; military jets, fast and small and sharp, zoomed past my window. I worried that they were too close. One might accidentally hit the building. Why were they practicing maneuvers?

Again, the poem.

Some say the world will end in fire.

I wondered: if I drench myself in water, will it protect me from burning? I went to the laboratory and stood under the emergency shower.

Instantaneously, I was consumed by an explosion. It hurt. The water evaporated. I knew that I would die. There was no chance to survive. No more time left. No answers. As everything bright became dark, I thought: how unfair. I don’t have any time to accept –

…

I woke up.

…

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-Robert Frost

 

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