For reasons I cannot comprehend, the recent natural disaster trend is taking over my mind and most importantly, my sleeping schedule.
Let me start by saying that while the entire tri-state area is freaking out, I have mostly remained calm, and my family just might be the only family who couldn't care less that there is an evacuation warning scheduled for our area. In fact, Stop&Shop ran out of food today, and we thought we'd laugh about it.
Yesterday at the office, my co-workers entertained me with questions like: Should I stock up on extra milk? What should I do with my air-conditioning unit? To all this, I snickered quietly to myself, You have got to be kidding me.
We all know how devastating hurricane Katrina was, and were once again reminded in the wee hours of today's morning, during my first class this semester, when my goof-ball professor was being really adamant about letting us off a bit early so we can begin evacuating and preparing for what he believes is the dawn of the apocalypse. Once again, I snicker, for lack of laughing in everyone's face, and say to myself - Seriously, this cant be it.
Maybe it's just my coping mechanism, extravagant ideas aren't to be entertained, maybe it's my jaded thought process, maybe it's my naiveté. Whatever it is, I am beginning to think that this scorching hot dinner we are about to get served, deserves at least a bit of examination. And I only say this because matters were made a lot worse when I actually dreamt about the end of the world. Twice.
The first nightmare came to me in the middle of a sleepless night in Prague when I dreamt some sci-fi malarky about how the government was turning against humanity, and the sky had become this manipulatable mirror reflection of all the people on the earth. The dream began with me and my friend Elina, realizing that looking up, we could see a reflection of ourselves, of the whole world in the sky. All these people moving about, houses standing, cars driving. However, our reflections were being controlled by some exterior force and we soon began to notice that this force was eliminating life off the planet. So we ran, eventually taking cover inside, thinking if we had roofs over our heads, we'd be less discoverable. We found ourselves in a bar, filled with people I felt I knew but all of whom had unidentifiable faces. Then the entire place got blown up, and it was all over. Except for me, left wandering alone in this empty space of a 'world'. Hooray? Anyway, that dream felt like utter terror. I woke up sweating, convinced that I actually spent the night fighting for my life against a force unbeknownst to anyone. This was 3 months ago.
Last night, it happened again- part 2 of the end of the world series, starring my friends and family, and without a doubt myself. Except this time it was longer, and potentially more plausible, which is not a good thing. It began with my friend Marina, who was sitting on the curb along with a bunch of other students, somewhere on a huge school campus. Behind her was a huge door with the sign 'ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, CLOSED'. At some precise moment, she turns to look at the door, and notices a man sneaking out, causing her to have some sort of epiphany. Now, my dreams seem to operate by way of feelings which indicate the set of actions being made. It's hard to describe what this epiphany of hers actually looked like, because you know how dreams are . . . they are fucking weird. Anyway, she has this epiphany, and then the next thing I know is that I am running with Elina, and we are running away from this enormous cloud of white smoke that is enveloping everything in its way. I tell Elina we need to seek shelter, because the smoke is radiation and we need to avoid it, that running will not work since it is spreading exponentially fast. So we are running, and the smoke is closing in all around us and the last image I see is the ENGLISH DEPARTEMENT door, and then the smoke is everywhere. At this point I wholeheartedly believe that I am dead. And when I say this, I mean I literally thought I had died. I still seem to exist as a body, but Elina is not with me anymore. I find myself in a dark space with no sense of depth, and I pick up my cellphone to call Marina believing that if the phone call goes through, it means I am still alive. The phone call does not go through. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot a row of people shuffling past me, and I dart to join them. There are 5 of them, all of whom I do not have the sense of knowing. The girl leading the line, is using a map, and the girl I am following, last on the line, has very crazy hair. I feel as though I have met her before. Where are you going I ask her, and she replies We think this path might lead to one of those abandoned subway stations where we can take shelter. This exchange felt so real and I felt unsure of whether this plan would lead us to safety. In fact, I thought this was organized to lead us to our deaths. So we walk through unused subway tracks for what seems like a very short time, before we reach a sort of dead end wall. We start to hear sounds, murmuring. I look at the wall and notice that it is thin, breakable, transparent even. And suddenly I see movement, shadows. I lean in to touch the wall and it evaporates, exposing people and sunlight. Next thing I know is that we are in a monstrously large field, and it feels like a high school reunion. It is sunny, and there is grass. People are wandering around, looking lost and confused, but everyone is discovering old acquaintances and trying to figure out what the fuck just happened to the world we knew. I spot Marina. She is extra tall and although she is wearing pyjamas, she is very fancy. We begin to talk and join 3 other people, one of whom is a good friend of ours, Marcela. All of us decide to explore. The space we're is like a funeral version of Coachella without the music. There are whole areas dedicated to survival kits, food storage, weaponry, etc. I imagine this is what Burning Man must be like. So we start walking down this path, and I feel very Cormac McCarthy. Marcela and I are in front of the group and she is telling me how she needs to go back home so she can pay her rent, and I tell her this is our home now. Suddenly, a handmade cart on wheels, made out of wood, rolls past us, and on it is a sort of carnivalesque theatre. There are two dwarf jokers, and Robin Williams (I know, WTF right?) sitting on a chair. Someone from our group, a male, jumps on the cart and begins to cry, whispering philosophical nothings to Robin Williams, who is unaffected by this charade. I can't recall anymore what he was saying, although mid-dream I was very aware of every word, and it made me feel shaken and changed. It was mundane and incomprehensible but clearly powerful, life-changing, some Waiting for Godot kind of stuff. As soon as this is over, I am being harassed by a woman, who appears disheveled, and is carrying more books than she can handle. She is yelling at me, waving papers, and throwing pencils in the air, begging me to document everything that happens in this place, to document our fight for survival. I begin to panic, thinking back on all the time I have spent not putting pen to paper, and I say to her there is nothing else to do here but write and she smiles, promising me that there will be great use for the work I produce. All of a sudden, the dream takes me back to my house, where I know my family is. They seem to not have made it to this 'other' world. They are still inside the house, and the house is in the perished world, and for some reason I am in the bathroom washing my face. Outside, there are ravenous souls hunting for life. I think to close the only window in the bathroom but I hear footsteps, and I am sure they have already gotten into our house. I hear my mother's screams, and the bathroom doorknob rattles.
I awake, panting, and sweating, and still fearing for my life. It is dawn, the sun just rose, and the day is nice. I skip breakfast and sit on my porch sipping coffee, trying to understand why my brain functions the way it does. I think about how I would like to bring back Freud for a chat, spill my soul to him, and maybe get some answers. But then I think about how I awoke from a nightmare only to find myself in another one.
Is this what the beginning of the end feels like? Or should I start drinking more?
I'm gonna go with the latter.
//Thank you dear friends for gracing my nightmares. I am sure that my twisted mind does not mean to hurt anyone's feelings by killing them off. And while I am not a licensed psychologist, I think it is safe to say that I don't want any of you dead, even on the days that I secretly wish you were dead. Which is never, obviously. Plus, this should make you feel better about your sanity.
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