I’ve mentioned before that I have a reputation for odd dreams, at least according to my husband. These days, I sleep a lot less and usually restlessly (I think even in sleep my ears are listening for the kids), but last night was an exception. Thanks to the unique encouragement of my husband, I fell into a deep, solid sleep at the late hour of 10:30 and slept until 7:30. It’s easily the longest I’ve slept in months. Not surprisingly, it came with a dream.
It started with my husband and myself in a beat up old blue Ford pickup, like the picture I found to the left. We were riding in it talking about hobbits and dwarves, and how their existence had recently come to light. Although I wasn’t really paying attention until we got out, the sky above us was dark orange and black with bursts of red-orange. The sky looked as if it were on fire on the inside. We saw an airplane blow up and fall out of the sky. I was mildly surprised. We walked into a mall.
Inside the mall, we went for ice cream. My husband got his quickly and went to sit down. I had a hard time making a decision, because I was trying to find something low fat, and the menu was huge! It spread across two whole walls at least 5 feet high. The only low fat option I could find was a strawberry flavor, and really, if you’re going to get ice cream, why waste it on strawberry? Finally I found one called “Kai Chocolate” and ordered that. The man behind the counter was annoyed that I took so long.
I got my ice cream cone and went to find my husband. Then some kind of alarm went off telling us the mall was going to be attacked somehow (bombs or guns, I’m not sure which–I don’t think anyone was). Darrell and I looked at each other and decided we needed to split up. He went off in one direction, presumably to his truck, I went further into the mall. Oddly, I was never concerned for my safety or his or the kids’. I knew all of us were safe somehow.
People were running around the mall, screaming. On TV’s spread throughout you could see that everyone was dealing with similar circumstances–the destruction was global. Planes falling out of the sky, trucks rocketing at full speed off of highways, places being blown up or shot up or just spontaneously igniting. While watching the news, I kind of stepped into it. For a minute it was like I was up in the sky looking down, and I saw this man somewhere in Africa giving this other man who was holding a little girl a gallon of milk, and over the top of it I heard a newscaster talking about the worldwide milk shortage.
I walked away from the TVs and ran into one room that suddenly became a church service. Queen Latifah was there. She was wearing a sparkly red dress and singing a song I haven’t heard before but that my dream-self knew. It was some kind of mix between “Adonai” and “El Shaddai.” Later, one of the ladies from our church got up on the stage and sang it, too.
I left there and ran into Jaime’s biological father, D–, in the hallway. I was not surprised to see him. He was very surprised to see me. The alarms sounded again, and this time I saw bright red letters pop up in the middle of my line of sight blinking and saying “Top Alarm! Top Alarm!”
D– just stood there. I grabbed his arm and ran to the door, but a guard was blocking it–no one was allowed to leave. “We could at least do something if we’re going to stay here,” he said tersely.
So I led him down another hallway in the mall that turned into a school. Halfway down the hall on the right there was a cafeteria filled with children, most under the age of 10. Their parents were lost out there in the fray, so they had all been rounded up and brought here for safety. They were eating. My pastor was standing at the front of the room helping watch the kids. One little boy came up to me and was crying, so I held him. Then I said, “D–, Pastor Tim. Tim, D–.”
They looked at each other for a minute. There was this understanding that passed between the three of us, something along the lines of it’s the end of the world anyway, no point in being coy. “How badly did she roast me when she spoke in church?” he asked Pastor Tim. “Not as badly as you probably think,” Tim replied. “She handled it with grace.” (Thanks, Tim!)
The kids were all scared, so I was trying to comfort them. I had the feeling that Darrell was on his way back to me, but I woke up before he got back. I turned to him and said, “Man, I had a crazy dream.”
He just shook his head. “Oh, there’s a surprise.” 😛
A Colorful Maze 