I had this dream last night that I amazingly remember quite clearly. Maybe it's due to not waking up to an alarm this morning (afternoon?). Here you go:
I was a black man, in his late 30s or early 40s. I had two sons, one a teenager, the other maybe between 8 and 10. Society had broken down, due to what, I didn’t know. It wasn’t all dreary like “The Road” or “Omega Man”. My sons and I were travelers, and the land was nice and green. It was actually more lush than normal, if where we were wandering was America, which I assumed it we were.
One morning we woke up and my youngest son is missng. Somehow we knew that he’s been abducted by what I best can describe as a cult community. They had taken over a small hillside village, which is more European than anything, but I’m still fairly sure this takes place in America.
My teenage son and I, we infiltrated the community. I don’t know how we were allowed in so easily. I think we just found the same clothing that they all wear and stroll right in, undetected, unassuming.
It’s maybe a day or two later when my eldest son and I were searching and we came to a large, spiral staircase that runs around the inside of a large, bluish-gray cylindrical building. There was a guard at the base of the stairs, but he was very old. He seemed to understand what we were looking for, and that maybe we didn’t really belong there, but he was tired and sympathetic to our plight, so he let us up the stairs. At the top, and through a door, we found a very large, and very green, field. There are several gatherings of people, doing various things, mostly recreational.
I saw my son in a group of children. They were on a small, wooden set of bleachers. They were standing and singing something. I didn’t notice an adult leading them, but you’d think there’d be one.
We stood for a while listening to the children. They were good, the song was good, and in a way I was proud of my son. But then a girl in the back pulled out a long broadsword. It was amazing that she could hold up the thing. More pressing, though, was that the sword was meant for my young son. The other children parted, leaving the girl room to bring down her blade down on my boy. He fell forward, onto the grass, and as the girl began to bring the sword over her head, like a sledgehammer, something clicked in me and with an amazing burst of speed I shot forward and grabbed my son before the sword could fall upon him.
It was time to get out of there.
So we ran. I had my younger son in my arms, with my teenage son running just ahead of me. But the guards were upon us quickly, and they had submachine guns. They were gaining on us, so I put down my young son and put his hand in the teenager’s hand and told the teenager, “Don’t let go.”
And to both of them: “Run. Now. Just run.”
And then I turned back towards the guards and at this point my perspective changed. I was no longer the father, but rather the teenage son, and I saw my father run towards the guards, at full charge, without a sound. I could see the bullets coming out of the guns. They were like little white lines flying all over the place. Somehow my dad was not hit, or maybe he did get hit but was on some sort of adrenaline high and didn’t feel the bullets piercing him. He set upon the guard who didn’t have a gun. I was running now, with my brother, and I looked back, and my father bit the guard’s neck like a vampire, but not to suck, just a long bite, and as my father pulled away the guard’s neck began to swell, like a croaking toad’s, and these dark spots started developing on the guard’s bloated neck, and the skin turned orange, and then it burst, and the guard’s body fell to the ground.
It was clear now: there was a virus that had beset the country and killed millions and millions of people. And what was left were wanderers like my father, brother and I, and odd communities like the one that we were running from. Somehow, my father was carrier. He could inflict it, but it had no affect on him.
If it also protected him from bullets wasn’t clear.
My brother and I ran on, down the hill and towards a grassy path that wound along a cliff. I looked back one more time, as my father set upon the next guard.
****
