One of those strange dreams that you can’t release. I had to jot it down at 2:00 am:
In the back of the church property, around the bluff and down the path to the lower plain, there was a cave. We went to open it to maintain the lake within with its creatures of all types. A thousand hulks floated within, some bloated, some sleek, some armored tooth and claw. Prehistoric monsters and alligators and simple fish floated around in a daze, and occasionally one would yawn, loosing a clamour of bubbles and waves. I had swum there often. I loved the lake’s waters, and I’d float on my back in the midst of them or race from shore to shore. I loved the dark in the corners and the rich smell of earth, and the secrets it held.
On our trip to do maintenance, we were strangely aware of a danger. There was one that we did not trust. A small winged creature that seemed to follow us down, hovering just out of our vision most of the way. We knew he’d wake the flat, sawtooth worms that nested at the edges of the shore in the shallows. We were frightened at the thought. We went down and attempted to enter, but we couldn’t open it. By then we had seen him. Orange striped flippers and penguin belly, he looked almost comical, but we knew he brought the end of this place.
We called for the strong man, we called for an archer or a child with a sling, we called whoever would come. And they came. We opened the door and saw tranquility, but again the door forced us back. We opened the door and saw tranquility interrupted. Fear overwhelmed us as the lake bubbled up. It rose toward the door and we fled back. We had never seen such a reaction from the creatures in the lake, and thought the flying one must have driven them mad.
But the men had marched past us in our sleep or our blindness. Men who cared for nothing but football and racing, men who had never read, children who were guileless. And they had thrown dynamite into the pond. They had put every monster into a deeper sleep. I heard them snoring in the shallows that the water had fled. The men pushed forward carts and everyone saw that the carts were full of gold and treasure. The carts we at least 20 feet in length, 5 feet wide and 6 feet deep. We wondered how they could push so much gold in the mud. Wonder filled us and we laughed, but I looked forward and saw the monsters sleeping before they were taken away. I saw dolphins waiting to swim in the lake we had cleansed and salmon ready to be released. I was sad for the old times, and wondered if we’d ever see creatures like what had lived here again.
We walked to the front of the property and saw the small stream that entered it and fed all the way to the back of the land. Then we walked back down. A old man stopped me and we talked with contagious enthusiasm about building a tiny cabin down in the cave, and how we’d love to stay there and pay anything to own it. But the logs that we tried to build collapse under their own weight.
We went down further and many were with us. Down around from the plateau to the plain beneath the church. And we walked into a huge auditorium where music and film and theatre were made. And in the midst, a court where children could play basketball. A woman from a school looking at the court with a coach. He jumped and hung from the rim and marveled at it’s strength. I told them that if they played here that their opponents would have difficulties with the goals themselves, that they’d always have an advantage.
The main part of the cave still drew me with tranquility, but the tumult had brought plenty and riches.
Posted via email from kholinar’s posterous
Note: I know the last seems incongruous, but, like most dreams it switched about without a care for consistency.