The sound of a pistol chambering another round, followed by the rattling of typewriter keys like automatic gunfire.
Another manifestation of a dream, neither good or bad. Fear and confusion all throughout, but not present enough to call it a nightmare. Walking streets in the darkest nightfall he had ever witnessed in his twenty two years. Passing through crowds of familiar sounding voices and silhouettes made even more obscure by the dim glow of street lamps.
The location itself familiar to the dreamer, yet hazed by a flipping of it’s orientation within the fantasy. A place he had been before in the waking hours, mirrored as though it now rested on and a pool of water and instead of walking atop the waves, he found himself with his heels and head beneath the water. Unease, the sensation of walking within his own shadow amidst those of the waking world.
Walking back from somewhere, a place he couldn’t be sure of. Maybe it had been the day prior, and the troubles which swam about his head as he followed his daily routines of debauchery and dreadful thoughts.
Suburban streets of moonlight trick or treaters, wearing their own daily disguises which the dreamer could almost identify if able to fixate his attention to any given figure. Considering his own experience that this place was somewhere beyond the Earth as he knew it, along with the muttering of the shadows made him fear what he might find if he listened too closely, or too intently.
Familiar figures carrying loads of their own anxieties and appetites, which likewise they kept to themselves in the awakened world. The dreamer kept walking along the sidewalk as the suburban setting seemingly melted into a modestly sized business district. Neon signs glowing advertisements for goods, services and other greed. Street lamps glowing their dim radiance down onto the occupants of the street, their features still obscured as though the lights themselves had cast a photo negative glows over flesh and other things which seemed so vibrant on his home planet.
Mount Washington, it had been. The dreamer knew this because of the large water tower, which suddenly had been shifted to the easternmost curve of state route 125 rather than due west.
The strangest sensation washed over him, as though all of Cincinnati had been shifted to the west coast of the United States all of a sudden, and New England to the Pacific Northwest. Mexico, California and the four corners to the east side, respectively.
Despite it’s familiarity, the dreamer knew that where he stood was lightyears from the Mount Washington he had known all of his life. These phantoms, while familiar in a sense, had been completely alien to his own species back home. The sky overhead, unadulterated by any form of light pollution, the stars and galaxies as clear as those in the country, back home. The space between each star seemed less the navy blue he remembered, but instead a deep purple.
The hairs along the nape of his neck began to stand, and the dreamer felt the sense that something may have been following him. Whether the presence was malevolent or benevolent, he couldn’t be sure. Still, the dreamer continued his walk. Shifting his focus to the sidewalk he followed toward the center of town, he realized not only that he was barefooted, but wasn’t wearing any pants.
The head atop his pillow back home grinned a little at the thought: a half naked stroll through the cosmos.
The storefronts of pawn shops, barbers and law firms which he had passed so many times on his own planet now made this place seem even more foreign to him. The words advertising each service had been written not only in an alien dialect, but an alien alphabet as well. Despite this, the dreamer could still comprehend that they were still the same services being offered back home. It was as though he could read them without pronouncing the language in which they had been written.
The shadows passed, and as he eavesdropped on different groups of them, he could tell that their own dialogue was not his native language either. Still, he could comprehend them but only prayed that none of them would address him directly. Banter just as he had heard back on Earth when he was awake, but he couldn’t speak this tongue himself without some kind of intergalactic translation service. In order to avoid contact and detection, he focused on the road ahead.
To his left had been what was, back home, a supermarket, and a drug store on the opposite corner of the intersection he was approaching. The squared bulbs of the traffic lights indicated that wherever he had been, blue had been the signal to proceed. Orange to stop, and pink to slow down. If of course, these traffic lights read the same as those the dreamer was familiar with.
There hadn’t been any cars out at this time, or if there had been he hadn’t seen any.
He rubbed the hairs along his neck, unsure if he was being followed by something or drawn toward something. The dreamer turned his head carefully, only to confirm that no shape had been further back on his trail.
He passed some restaurants and a car lot which seemed out of place. The hood ornaments looked unlike any he had ever seen, but the engineering of the vehicles seemed familiar enough. This was something that he found somewhat comforting. Deep in the pit of his stomach he felt a knot, and knew suddenly that he had been carried along by some force. He hurried his walking pace, and felt a flash of comfort down in his loins, knowing that wherever he had been going had been just where he needed to go.
Past a park, populated by trees he couldn’t stop to examine in this light. A few apartment complexes and into the parking lot of the third building. Just beyond the building, he could see a faint glow. The source which had been tugging the invisible rope about his waist. He slowed once more, unsure of what he might find when he reached it.
Weaving between cars and toward the entrance of the building, along the sidewalk and around the hedges. To the corner of the building, the dreamer noticed that his footsteps had been appearing before him as though being laid like breadcrumbs along a maze. Rounding the corner, he noticed that the fire escape of the building had it’s ladder to the ground, and climbed up it with a kind of hestiance which he couldn’t define. The light shone greatly upon him now, but not so badly that it had blinded him.
Topping the ladder and rounding the three sets of stairs, twelve steps he had counted on the first two flights, but as he took the twelfth step of the third flight, his foot found no ground. Then the other foot followed and he found himself floating above the highest platform and being drawn towards the source of radiance which had been guiding him. Breathing steadily, half naked, the dreamer ascended past the railing of the fire escape and out over the dumpsters which had been parked alongside the building.
The sensation of floating, and a clearer view of its presence.
A great cerulean light just above the distant tree line. Glowing, perfectly round just above where he had been standing. Fluxing throughout its great light had been clouds of lighter blues and patterns not unlike those he had witnessed on his short stint with hallucinogens.
Upon closer glance, it seemed that it wasn't as much perfect in its circular shape, but rather elliptical.
Then suddenly, shorter still. And a shock ran through him as it shortened it's gap even more, and the dreamer noticed long black eyelashes closing about its mass. More disturbing still, after it closed entirely and opened once more, the wrinkles and general shape of the great blue eye before him reminded him of his grandfather's. Something wise, protective, and incredibly maternal about its presence.
It had a force to it, some steady hum which gave the dreamer the impression that it was speaking to him. Communicating some important message which he needed to hear, and a flush of peace as the humming grew uproarious enough to shake him from his sleep.
Now, on the Earth he had known and loved so much he stretched about the woven cotton blanket that laid over him. There was comfort there with him, but not from the weave of cotton or the stretch deep in his toes, but knowing that wherever he had travelled the night before was close to the center of the universe. Where the explosion threw wide the rocks and stars about the purple sky from the dream, and the deep blue one which inhabited his own planet.
Comfort in knowing that the same sapphire mass which had laid it's gaze upon him moments ago may have been an angel or seraph of some kind. And maybe a little further out in that esoteric night sky had been God.
