For some reason I’m afraid of my dreams. I usually wake up in the morning and if I remember a dream in that hazy state between first opening your eyes and then remembering “it’s Tuesday, I have specific things I need to do in the next 20 minutes”, I try to forget it. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always been like that. The dreamtime creeps me out a little bit, and I’ve had more dreams that have lingered and bothered me than dreams that have brought me joy. It’s as if dreaming is a vehicle for my mind to unload all the anxiety and stress carried by my subconscious over a 7 or 8 hour period and really rub my nose in it. So my reaction to that when first waking up is to immediately hit the erase button. I’ve never wanted to keep a dream journal, but I have written down a dream or two if I thought it carried some significance. There are fictional places I go to over and over again, like this remote French city called Norxelle. Every time I go there the architecture, the skyline, the restaurants, they’re all the same. I know every turn and alley, and there’s a giant white sign over an archway as you enter the city by bridge that names it: NORXELLE. Sometimes I’ll be doing something else and suddenly images from a dream I had will be retriggered. I recorded some piano into a sampler and just let it run for a bit, the virtual tape head scanning the recording and playing back random snippets. I started to remember something.
It happened again. We all woke up that morning having had the same dream. At first no one said anything. We walked out to the ocean to gather our thoughts. Someone asked, “When do you think it’s coming?” A few minutes later we could see it on the horizon, catching the sun, glittering ominously as it made its slow approach. It seemed like hours we sat there waiting for the rolling tide to take the bottle to us. When it washed ashore we all looked at each other with dread and anticipation. She grabbed it and uncorking the bottle, retrieved the slip of paper with slow, deliberate movement. You have seven sunrises remaining. Choose who must go.” The words took the breath away. A group of nearby seagulls wailed. There was no way we could decide. We all earned our place. None of us deserved that fate, and each of us were an integral part in the ongoing survival of the group. We were organs in one body. The days went by in a torrent. At sunset on the seventh day there was hope and fear. It could be some kind of test. Or a joke. We had nothing we could do but wait. Twelve hours from sunset we regrouped on the beach and fixed our gaze on the horizon. We waited. It was night. No hint of color. Oppressive darkness. Someone began shouting, I don’t know what. Everything everywhere was night. Was night, was night, was night, was night, was night.