I both love and hate the way I dream. I dream in color. Vivid dreams. . .detailed dreams. When I am asleep I live another life. I live in homes that I have never seen and live out events that I have never experienced in my life. I visit with spirits of loved ones long gone, sometimes not realizing until I am awake of exactly who they are. Some dreams are more mundane than others, some are more exciting and terrifying yet some how more fleeting upon wakefulness. Some dreams recur…never exactly the same in the details, but always similar in the subject matter and end game…cars, tornadoes, the shape shifter of man who is going to murder me.
Once, after detailing a incredibly vivid and horrifying dream to a coworker, I was berated. “No one dreams like that!” His look and tone actually scoffed me more than is words did. “No one has dreams with plots and twists and colors…dreams are all disjointed images and gray scale…”
“I have those too. But sometimes, it’s more intense.”
“You’re a fucking witch, then.” His lips curled up in disgust. “maybe a psychic or something freaky like that. People don’t dream that way.”
And maybe, most people don’t dream like that. That specific dream I was telling him of was very vivid, very graphic. I remember as if it was last night. The night I conjured that dream was the night that learned that I dreamed in color. Steel was silver…glinting, shiny silver and blood was so, so red. That night I learned the thing that stalks me in my dreams would remove any obstacle which impeded him from his mission..hurting me.
At the time, I was 21 years old and working at a dive bar/wing restaurant. My best friend in the world at the time was a blond, bald, blue eyed sweetheart named Scooter. We spent several nights a week hanging out, drinking or playing music. . .usually both. It was the most beautiful of platonic relationships. We could road trip together. We let each other hook up, but never let the other get in too much trouble. We were joined at the hip. I tell you this because Scooter was with me in the dream, at my side…just like in my real life.
Scooter and I were on the way to somewhere. A gig? A bar? Who knows. Such is the way of the subconscious that those types of details never come into question. I know that our vehicle has somehow become disabled, and we were knocking on the door of a house to ask to use a phone. This is where the dream began.
(Before you scoff, please keep in mind that this dream was 13 years ago, before the commonality of cellular phones and Onstar. I had a PAGER back then for goodness sake. I’m just trying to give you perspective…)
The man who answered the door was short; I could meet his eye without having to angle my head upwards almost at all. He wore a denim jacket over a dark tee, and a sneer to match the strange look on his face. The smoke from his cigarette wafted from his unshaven countenance up into the forest of his black hair. His dark eyes darted about, from Scooter, to me, to the door, to my breasts.
“Hi! We need help!” Scooter grinned through his introduction, half sales pitch, half plea. “our car…”
“Hi there.” My dream redneck/italian antihero only had eyes for me. He reached out and brushed my hair back behind my ear. His fingers lingered there intimately; he drew closer. The tendril of hair refused to stay behind my ear, so he began to gather and twirl it in his calloused fingers. “Look what dropped on our doorstep.”
“Lucky us.” The accented voice emerged out of the shadows. It’s owner stood in the corner, his back against the wall. As my eyes adjusted, he became more intimidating: Bald, tall, muscular, wide. He held a bottle of cheap vodka which he tipped up and pulled a hard, long draw from.
” ‘Ello Baby!” Liquor dripped from his grinning, wet lips onto his sweat stained, once white wife beater tank. He leaned in, menacing in his proximity and leer. I could smell the sourness of his sweat and breath: adrenaline mixed with vodka and nicotine.
“Hey!” Scooter had felt the threat, I wasn’t alone. Those blue eyes were wide, shoulders back. “I came here with the girl because we needed help.” I have never forgotten that, at that moment, in the dream, he called me the girl…. “You are not going to hurt her.”
The dim lighting in the hallway glinted off of the sweaty aussie’s head as he staggered forward, the bottle sloshing side to side with his swagger, up and down to his lips. His face split again into a toothy grin as he came shoulder to shoulder with his swarthy compatriot, whose fingers were still entwined in my hair. Suddenly, the fingers snared and yanked..I was held fast by a fistful of hair, inches from dark, soulless eyes and a lit cigarette.
The sticky face of the Australian hovered over the Guido’s shoulder. His eyes shifted to focus on Scoot. “don’t worry, mate.” The bottle came up, gurgled, went back down. “We’ll kill her quick, after we fuck her.”
Scooter moved fast, faster than I expected him capable of. So did the Ocker, especially for his size. It was blurry as it happened… I was released from my unbalanced, arched stance and spun to the floor. There was a scuffling of shoes and dust. Breaking glass. (There goes the vodka …) Grunts. I regained my balance and focus.
I saw the blade as it sliced through the shirt and zig zagged through his flesh. Scooter clutched his gut as the Aussie backed away; crimson flowed through his fingers, up through his mouth. It stained the wall as he slowly, so slowly, slid down to the floor. The blue eyes shone with shock, then pain. Then, they were empty.
I ran.
There was dust and light through random boarded up doors. Bare light bulbs swung violently from side to side, , shifting shadows casting strange shadows with their dim light. I saw a staircase, but knew it led to death somehow. It wasn’t an option.
The last room was in front of me. My last chance.
Another bare lightbulb showed dingy walls, a stained twin mattress under a boarded up window, the dark haired man coming through t he door.
He smiled fully for the the first time.. very different then his sneer, and somehow even more frightening. There is joy in his face, he can’t wait to kill. His nostrils flare. I recognize him..from childhood and adolescent dreams long past. He’s always the same, in the end. He is always my murderer.
He takes a deep breath.
My eyes flash around the room…only one way in or out. He fills up the whole doorway.
“I take it back.” There is blood on his teeth somehow, his smile widens even more. ” I’m going to take my time.”
He steps toward me.
I wake up.
The coffee, the diesel, the methamphetamine 