point of awareness

i half-dreamed i was talking to an old lady on a bus, and she asked me to hold out my hands, palms up, and depending on which hand was lower, right or left, i'd know how many good dreams, and how many bad dreams, i had left in me for the rest of my life. i couldn't tell which hand was lower and was about to ask her which hand meant good and which hand meant bad when she raised her own hand to me and slapped me square in the chest, hard and purposefully, as though she were trying to pound life back into me, clucking angrily. "there!" she cried, "there! stupid girl. this was a test! the dreams aren't in your hands. they're in your heart. wake up!" she slapped my chest, right between my breasts, again. hard. she was furious and frustrated with me. the thumping noise her palm made against my sternum dragged me up from my half-sleep. i lay there wondering what on earth that was all about.

i'm 'the one'.

i had a dream last night i was sitting on a rooftop overlooking a huge city, at dusk. beside me was a friend who i've always harboured a sometimes-tiny, sometimes-enormous crush on. he was telling me that he was about to ask his current girlfriend to marry him. i just remember looking down between my sneakered feet, down down down, at least 30 stories between me and the sidewalk and the cars and people busying themselves below, all out of focus, and feeling as though an enormous weight was pressing on me, like it was going to crush my head. i tried to make a moaning noise, i felt so sad that he was about to marry someone that wasn't me, even though i knew i would never marry him myself, even if circumstances were different and i wasn't already somewhat happily hitched. so i tried to make this noise, this sort of moaning, sad noise, to express myself, and what came out of my throat was a genuine rumbling growl, as though my throat had grown thick with muscles and unfamilliar vocal chords. my friend took his eyes off the glittering skyline and looked at me curiously, and then his eyes grew huge and terrified. i couldn't figure out what was going on until i looked at my hands. they'd turned into great, huge, furry orange and white paws. my head felt heavier, and more square, my mouth itched. i tried to shake the feeling off and get off of the ledge to walk around a bit, and that was when i realized that i had turned into a bengal tiger. my friend was speechless, gaping at me. i twisted my body around, landed on my four huge paws, and loped slowly away, leaving him on the darkening roof, to wonder.

flash flood 04

last night i dreamed that leon and i were out in a public place together. it was busy, very busy, and we kept losing each other in the crowd. i would stand on my tip-toes and catch sight of him, leagues away from me, waving. i kept trying to get to him, unsuccessfully. i had my camera in my hands and i was snapping pictures of him every time i thought i had a good line of sight. suddenly this parade of police started marching through the crowd, with people in handcuffs at their sides. no one knew what was going on, it was some sort of massive arrest. all the "criminals" were wearing threadbare tiger costumes. i saw that one of our friends, shane, was dressed in such a costume, being led away. i caught leon's eye and he spotted shane too. we were both distressed. i started firing off pictures of shane in his tiger costume and handcuffs. despite the fact that he was obviously in trouble, he was still smiling. he didn't see me or leon even though we were yelling his name. i finally lost leon in the crowd, and decided that i would head towards home and meet with him there.

i walked and walked. i finally found myself on a deserted suburban street in one of our old neighbourhoods. i tried to walk up the steep sidewalk to get to our side street, but my legs gave way. i couldn't move at all. i was lying, prone, on the street, trying to crawl across the road. a car was trying to get past me, honking at me, but the woman inside wouldn't get out to help me. i finally managed to pull myself up to a standing position and jerkily walked across the road. it was only a block or two more to get to my street, but i couldn't do the walking. a bus appeared and i managed to climb up inside it. the driver was very concerned for me and took the bus off it's regular route to drop me at my front door. it was the house we lived in with shane before i got pregnant with my son, a tiny bungalow. when i got off the bus my legs worked again. i undid all the locks on the door with my keys and walked into the living room to find my old dog, cheevers, sleeping in a patch of sunlight. he looked up sleepily at me. i dropped my bags and jacket and called him to my side. i walked through the silent house to the kitchen and was going to open the back door to let him out so he could pee, when i saw that the back alley was raging with flood waters, at least waist-deep. they hadn't swelled into our yard yet, but i was too stunned to open the door and let the dog out. i just stared and stared and tried to figure out where all the water was coming from. suddenly a big rig appeared, driving down the hill in the flood. it was trying to create a dam out of used tires of all different sizes. it finally blocked the alleyway and suddenly all the water was thundering through my backyard and hit my house with a sonic boom sound. i clung to the window sill in shock as i watched everything that was in our yard wash away. the man who was driving the rig leapt out of the driver's side door and waded his way across my precarious back yard. he climbed up the steps and his face appeared on the other side of the window.

"hey!" he said, "hey!"

"hey!" i cried back, "what the hell is going on?"

i could barely hear him over the din of the raging flood.

"i was landscaping my backyard with this borrowed machine from my work and i hit a watermain!" he shouted. "i can fix it but i need help, and the guy who can help me won't be available until tomorrow!"

"well that doesn't do me any good!" i cried back, through the glass, "my whole house is going wash away at this rate!"

he looked sad and worried. "i know," he said, his voice suddenly quiet. even as the flood raged behind him, i could no longer hear it. it was just his face in the window, his quiet voice against the glass, his breathing. "i know. and i'm very, very sorry for that."

i banged my palm against the glass, angry. his face vanished and the sound of the flood returned. roaring. undefeatable. i felt the cement walls of the basement give way under the water's pressure. my last thought was of a photograph i'd taken, of shane, arrested, in his tiger suit, and leon's face a few yards behind him, nearly swallowed up by a crowd. my old dog whined and laid down at my feet. i banged the window again. the flood seeped under the doorway. i woke up.