General Calamity of the Pillow Headed Sort

Last night and through this morning, in my dreams, I was visited by a host of former friends, fiends and foes. What a delight it was, to be honest, that every time I was jostled awake by the cold morning air or our roommate’s morning rituals or our own alarm or the return of Olivia from her appointments, I was dipped straight into a new dream, as connected as they may have been.

In the first, I found myself riding down Elzi Marsh Lane, the road where I grew up, nestled between a corn field and a plot of cows in the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside. My company was three, Olivia herself and two of my cousins, David and Adam, and our transport was a wooden wagon which would have been used to loads bails of hay on for storing in the barn and pulled behind a tractor. No such device was pulling us in this instance and suddenly, upon realization of such a fact, the front wheels of the wagon turned sharply and we crashed hard over the bank at the edge of the road. Fear shuttered up through me from sneakers to socks and beyond as I looked around frantically, even as we were still falling, to make certain that no one was being trapped beneath the turning assembly of wheels, wire and wood. Olivia, check. David, check. Then the horrible realization that Adam had been trapped under the wagon…

In the flow of any conventionally devised story this would have been a major event, but the shock of fear and sadness that raged through me at seeing my cousin and old friend pinned under such a heavy contraption diluted quickly as it was made apparent that he could simply lift it up off of himself and walk away.

Then there appeared two bears on the hilly horizon. I was afraid at first, but reassured by Olivia and my cousins that there was nothing to worry about. Suddenly I felt like a nieve city boy with no clue as to how this vast countryside worked and the others, Olivia included, were all knowing as to how to handle the situation. We just went along our way, weaving in and out of the bears, two of them, a large and awkward one and his smaller, scruffier father. All seemed well until I was struck by fright at realizing that none of the other three actually had dealt with bears before, and as the smaller father bear came up close to me I began to run. It held chase and we raced along this stone wall, twenty feet high, as I contemplated attempting to do a Super Mario 64 wall jump up the thing…

To do so meant a 30% chance that the bear wouldn’t be able to continue his pursuit and therefore minimal amounts of my flesh would be stuck between his sparkly sharpening teeth. Not to, I realized, would mean that the bear (which PBS’ Nature had assured me could run up to 60mph) would soon be wiping white man from the corners of his mouth. So I did it, I made the jump, my fingers just barely catching the top of the wall. I remember the feeling all too well, the indecisiveness, knowing that while making the jump was my only option, it also meant that if I missed, only a second later there would be a four hundred pound grizzley over me. And the feeling of my foot landing clumsily between two of the stones in the wall, the sinking in my gut as I realized I wasn’t going to make it, and the almost paralyzing shock through my arms and chest as I actually grabbed on and was saved.

The bear dispursed, looked for a way to get to the top of the wall, which was all ground level above, and I dropped to the ground and ran into my grandfather’s house. I thought about helping the others, but was so angry with them and hit with the realization that we could all have been safe an hour ago if they hadn’t acted as though they knew what they were doing. So I abandoned them, wherever they might be, and fled for the house.

I made it across the yard and halfway up the stairs when I noticed that both bears were charging after me… I only had a few steps left and wasn’t that worried but when I slipped through the doors my grandfather was there, forcing the door open.

“Leave them bears in, boy!”

“WHAT!!!!” Dammit – everyone here is mad. The other three had already come in the house and now these two bears were coming in. No one seemed worried, so I calmed down. The larger bear begain to sniff and my grandfather’s crotch and everyone laughed and said things like “Oh, that bear!” I joined in the laughing and the father bear began to jostle his nose around in my own groinial area. I saw a look of fear on my grandfather’s eyes. I was paralyzed, the bear opened its mouth, I thought to bite but it turned out to be a yawn. It walked away from me, satisfied at having smelt my smell, I suppose. My grandfather laughed and pointed at me.

“Boy, that was a bear! It could have bitten your free willy right off!” Suddenly I was eternally upset with everyone in the house and the bad times just went on from there…

And that was only one of my dreams…in another I rescued the gagged and bound members of Green Day from drowning in toilets only to find out that all I had done was cut the ribbons and bows off of some child’s birthday present (Green Day action figures.) Then I was talking with a friend in the bathroom and various reflections appeared of people who weren’t there, in the horrible opposite of a vampire movie revelation. Perhaps the worst part was when I realized that I had spent twenty minutes posting a long and drawn out horrible post about dreams that I’d had and never gotten to the point….

There are ghosts in my home, I’m sure of it, please help me!

Up Next: Kings and Teens