Challenge with No Outcome -
A Dream
A great ball of gold settled behind massive banks of clouds. Rain poured down, glistening sidewalks and streets. Gold, green, and red street lights changed and flashed on a west coast winter night splashing watery reflections through puddles like laughing children at play.
This very wide street was in an old part of town with a railway line where the center white line should have been. On one side of this odd street, only one lean-to like shop with an open front, was open. The shop’s bright lights seeped into the misty night air. Glittering costume jewelry, colourful silk scarfs, woolen blankets and odd shaped hats dangled and lay in piles on hooks and tables. It was a shop for tourists on this road coming from nowhere and going off into the unknown.
A brief browse through the shop, then I turned out into the dark wet night. Outside, I pulled my collar up against fingers of cold mist and stepped into the street just as a freight train screamed in the distance of my dream. I staggered suddenly and fell to my knees.
Unable to get up, I knew I had to cross the road and railway tracks, so began to crawl. It felt like I was crawling through cold molasses, my limbs uncooperative and stiff. I reached the other side just as the train whistled by me. The wind of the train blew past me and pushed me to my feet. Tripping, I lurched forward onto a shabby porch of an old wood-frame house. Crossing the threshold, I entered without knocking. No one was seen or heard, but a warm glow came from the living room. I climbed a flight of twisting stairs, holding tight to the balustrade. At the top, only a bathroom, poorly appointed, with water dripping in the tub greeted me. Still there was no one to be seen or heard. Other rooms, if they were there, were only dreamy cloud shreds.
This very wide street was in an old part of town with a railway line where the center white line should have been. On one side of this odd street, only one lean-to like shop with an open front, was open. The shop’s bright lights seeped into the misty night air. Glittering costume jewelry, colourful silk scarfs, woolen blankets and odd shaped hats dangled and lay in piles on hooks and tables. It was a shop for tourists on this road coming from nowhere and going off into the unknown.
A brief browse through the shop, then I turned out into the dark wet night. Outside, I pulled my collar up against fingers of cold mist and stepped into the street just as a freight train screamed in the distance of my dream. I staggered suddenly and fell to my knees.
Unable to get up, I knew I had to cross the road and railway tracks, so began to crawl. It felt like I was crawling through cold molasses, my limbs uncooperative and stiff. I reached the other side just as the train whistled by me. The wind of the train blew past me and pushed me to my feet. Tripping, I lurched forward onto a shabby porch of an old wood-frame house. Crossing the threshold, I entered without knocking. No one was seen or heard, but a warm glow came from the living room. I climbed a flight of twisting stairs, holding tight to the balustrade. At the top, only a bathroom, poorly appointed, with water dripping in the tub greeted me. Still there was no one to be seen or heard. Other rooms, if they were there, were only dreamy cloud shreds.
My dream, for I awakened then, left me with mixed feelings. Unsure of the dream’s meaning, I was definitely grateful for having made it across those railway tracks!
“Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things,
a semi-deliverance from the human prison.”
~ Henri-Frederic-Amiel
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