Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 1

Approaching Darkness On A Wall

It was daylight that seemed to bend around a heap of darkness. There were dark clouds that hung high in the air. No storms, or rain. But the sheer stark bluish-grey was vivid, and the only light came from even higher in the sky but it was a soft grey light. I stood on a bridge that had elements of the Great Wall of China, but it was much taller and built with large slabs of granite and iron. I looked over the side. Everything was normal. Everything seemed normal.

My mother was driving in a truck to the store. Momentarily we were stopped on the bridge, whether it was the road being too bumpy or car problems, I didn't know. I saw that I was the only one who stood on the bridge and I couldn't climb down over the side. I was a little unnerved at how high up it was. I knew something was wrong. I looked behind, almost stiff with fear I saw a mass of shadow creeping toward the bridge and on toward the area below the bridge. The shadow crawled on to the town, to the people, to my family who were now just below the way. I knew something was dreadfully wrong. I cried out "Look! Look!" and the sound was as if nothing had escaped my lips. "Look! It's darkness! It's coming right this way!" But no one heard me. There seemed to be a vacuum between me and everyone else.

I watched as the mass grew and thickened, softly and subtly. Never did it explode onto the scene, it just crept like a dust cloud. Not unlike pollution from an industry plant nearby. With one last effort I gave one more cry "Look!" and no one heard or gave the approaching mass any attention as it took on a stronger and darker accumulation. With the last breath I cried out again and the bridge shook and began to collapse. Then I awoke.

The tragic form of loss went into memory to filter information received and in a way dulled into escapism. In dreams sadness is felt so much stronger, but a dream is an escape at the same time. I began memorizing every bridge and wall around any city that I could. The unreal lingering in the waking world. Walking on that side of conscience to absorb and count what in real life would now and again unfold. It wasn't just a shadow that would pace the floor wondering what would happen to an unstable bridge. I would be prepared if any instinct may persuade me that there was danger. I would speak long before any bridge was crossed, should that sense fall on me.

The dreams from the night before being disturbed and unspoken. "It's just a dream" they'd say. But there was truth in those strangely lit images, and there were stark coincidences.

With all the constant moving around in the beginning of life, learning the scenery of northwest mountains to desert valleys of the southwest to the coasts of the east, massive paths and memories were embedded early on in life. There were many levels of place, time and memory. And we would always see the ghosts. Seas out in distances, shadows up in the clouds. We had flown and glided above them without fear that gravity was beckoning us back.

When the ghosts were dense. We had to cope. Thus, the nightmares could be overwhelming. But remember this, dear reader, there is nothing that can ever harm you there. It's only in the flesh that we are unable to remember how we do those supernatural tricks.

Circa 1985