A mountain. Two cars and a family. A pregnant sister-in-law, a chased-after Chinese dinner and a lack of the trees that, my mind knows, usually stand in place of the orange clay rock.
A local family of whom I had befriended closely the two younger siblings play a role in this story. Their presence is felt and although the face of my first crush, the middle child, lets call him T, is never seen, I know it is him who is wearing the red and white soccer-looking jersey. He is older and has a friend following him while his younger sister is still small. I notice this as she shows me her new high heels, in her upstairs bedroom, which when I look at the sole, realise is only a size 1 and a half.
There seem to be flashes of me as a child too, getting ready for what in my head, I believe to be a ballet concert. Instead, I am being dressed in what looks to be a mascots outfit, perhaps a bear or a something similar. I’m pushed out onto the football field where all the seats are filled with bodies clapping. The nerves flutter away and I smile. I’m so small, but so accomplished in this moment.
I’m now at a house, standing outside with familiar presences all around me. There is my Father to my right, who is standing the closest to the woman sitting in a chair in front of us all, yelling. She is ill, unable to remember who we all are and is screaming at us for it. I can sense my father is trying to calm her but she seems to be untameable. She’s confused as to why we are standing in her garden.
Flash to me staring at a large black board where pictures have been pinned. The pictures are of my life and people I’ve known. Not my life as it has happened in the world today, but the events of perhaps me on another level of existence. I look incredibly happy and so do the photos of others around me. We’re all posing and dancing with bright yellow sunflowers. We’re dressed in what looks to be, hippy-inspired clothing. Splashed with bright colours, like purple, red, yellow, orange and even brown. I’m wearing large sunglasses in nearly every picture and we all look incredibly free.
As my eyes return from the ground, I realise I am standing in front of the old lady once more, tears trickling down my cheeks as I explain to her who we are and how much we love her. I show her the pictures and let her know that without her, none of this would be possible; none of us would be possible. I cry as I tell her how happy we all are and how it is all because of her that we are this way. She’s a bitter old woman for not seeing that. I tell her we come everyday because we love her and unlike her, we remember the good times. She then begins to cry too.
Suddenly I am back in a car again, on the way to pick up a Chinese family dinner. My partner is driving in the seat next to me and there is a passenger whose company I can feel but I do not see. There is a car travelling slowly in front of us and the passenger in the back encourages F to overtake. He moves to the right hand lane and begins to speed up. He doesn’t know the roads as well as I do though. I gasp and yell, “No you can’t! Not around this bend! Please!” I yank on F’s shirt and he swerves back in at the last second, in time only to see the huge water truck on the other side of the corner. It’s big and red and a little faded, but I see it. I’m left panting from the ordeal. Another car enters from the laneway just near the bend. I know my pregnant sister-in-law is in it. My father is in it also. Seconds later and they could have been us; in danger. I know now that they’re safe and sense they are on their way to the same take-away dinner location as the three of us. I take a breath.
I find myself suddenly, standing in a garden. My mother’s beloved garden. Green and full of leafy hideaways. My mother is in a white linen dress and she speaks calmly and gently as she always has. We discuss life and the world as we so often do, before she relays to me that a visitor has been to see her.
F is in the garden while I’m talking things over with my mother, but he’s in the distance and he’s jumping frantically over rocks, towards the back of the property. He’s looking for his friends and calling to them for directions. They call back and I know he’s getting closer to them, but I can see flashes of his black shoes pounding the ground as if he were standing right next to me. I sense his footsteps so close that I reach out to grab him only he’s not there. My mum leans in to whisper to me and says, “He said to keep him posted”.
Any further thoughts are interrupted as my younger brother, my best friend and true soul mate, cries out for the attention of all in the garden. Everyone freezes and their eyes shoot toward J, where he stands, arms stretched either side of him, up and out into the air. He confesses his depressive state of mind. He weeps that he has lost all sense and is unable to see a clear future for himself. He admits he is entirely unsure of where he will be next year, because he doesn’t see himself anywhere next year. I am unable to breathe. My life stops in this moment.
I am sucked out of this time and into another. The happy pictures flash before my eyes once more and I begin to cry as I am faced with the image of myself, cradling the photographs of a better life. Holding on to the smiles, the colours and the sunflowers as though if I held tightly enough, I may be able to change the world. Tears gently roll down my face as I utter “It doesn’t matter where I’ll be next year, because I know now, I’ll be alive”.
I wake from this dream with indescribable fear throbbing through my veins. Fear for my brother and panic for his life. I debate for 3-4 minutes the idea of getting up to locate my phone and message him, to make sure he’s okay. After the long 3-4 minute debate I held with myself, I go in search of my phone. Found, I wake and write the text to my brother, at 3:03am Thurs 28th May 2009. I then open my laptop to churn out this wild, and most probably, only to me, frightening tale of lives, which strangely enough, seem to incorporate most people I know/knew or care/cared about in my life.
Maybe it’s not my brother I should be scared for? Perhaps my dream is telling me something about my own life? If so, is it my own life I should fear for? My baby brother has not replied, but I am hoping he is safe and warm in his queen sized bed, next to his girlfriend, in their 1 bedroom apartment, only a 15 minute walk from me here. To those I know/knew and love/loved, I do, honestly and desperately love you all.
PS – My brother messaged me at lunch today and he is fine. Although he commented that the time I had woken from this dream, was around the time he had gone to bed. Strange or?
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