What dreams may come

I have this recurring dream. It follows me through the day.
It started after I watched The Crazies.

In the dream we're driving down big open roads, so big that I know we're in America. The people in the car change from dream to dream, but there's always four of us, and one of the people with me is always Li.

We get to this cute little town, which may as well be deserted for all the people we can see, and decide to stop for gas (yes, gas - we're in America after all). What happens next changes from time to time, but the same pattern always arises. The other two people (normally a boy and a girl) wander around the gas station as Li fills up, and I end up touching a local person. Sometimes the guy behind the counter touches my hand as I pay for our snacks and the fuel; sometimes a woman hands me a baby. Which ever occurs, my skin makes contact with theirs and everything changes.

My vision is pulled in a totally impossible direction. It's as if I look to the distance without looking away from the persons face; like time shifts under me and suddenly I see a platoon of soldiers and cars storming up the road in a haze of summer heat. My vision pulls me above to an impossible height and I see the people of the town not looking perplexed, or angry... they don't look like anything. They're like plague victims who are unsure how to die. Then the shooting starts and my vision pulls back to the skin touching my hand.

I'm infected.

It's so clear to me that I feel numb with shock. I'm about to die.
Whether this pandemic kills or not, I'm soon to die. And worse, if my friends stay much longer - if they touch me, or anyone else - they'll die. Even if I keep them from contact they'll be mown down, caught in the crossfire. Treated like an infected townie.

That's when I feel the world collapse.
Because I have to stay here, and get my friends to safety... but how?
Who would believe my vision?

Li is strolling towards me, smiling but confused by my expression (or sometimes the child in my arms) and I know he's about to hug me to cheer me up.
I back away from him quickly. The hurt in his eyes is almost not worth saving his life. If this will save him. I figure I have a day at most before they get here.

"Woah, what's up?" he asks, raising his hands in a gesture of peace or surrender.

"Don't touch me." I almost cry. The words are like a slap across his face. We have just been snuggled up in the back of the car talking about what to do when we finish our road trip and head home. Now I'm backing away from him telling him not to touch me. But I can't back down. Not if there's a chance he'll survive.

"Lauren, what's wrong?" he asks, stepping closer; hands still raised to shoulder height as if he were facing down a gunman. Something that could become very real, very quickly if I don't get them out of here. But the more panicked I act, the more he's going to want to hold and comfort me. This is a nightmare.

"Please... there's not much time. You have to go." This shocks him so much he drops his hands.

"We have to go, you mean." He says, perplexed and upset. He's so frustrated his eyes are going bluer.

"Yes, all of you. You have to get in the car now and go. Fast." I'm working it out in my head as I give him the instructions, picturing their get away in my mind. They'll be stopped, of course they'll be stopped - but they wont just shoot them. They'll ask where they've been, if they stopped, if they got out of the car... maybe even if they had the windows up. Do they suspect it's airborne? I know it isn't - don't ask me how - I just know.

"No, Lauren. We. As in, there are four of us - and that includes you." He's speaking slowly, as if I'm stupid, as if I've lost my mind. Maybe I have lost my mind.

"I can't come with you. It's too late." I know I'm talking in riddles, but my brain is whirring through possibilities, alibis, scenarios - and normally Li is so much in my brain he knows what I'm thinking before I do. But he didn't just see what I did, so it's no wonder he looks about ready to tear his hair out.

"What the hell are you on about??" he practically yells. I step back to make sure he can't grab me and try to shake some sense into me. Our skin might touch. He thinks he's scared me and instantly lowers his tone, stepping closer "Loreal, what's going on? Talk to me!" he pleads into my eyes, his voice soft and sad.

The unspoken "What have I done?" lingers in his eyes.
Oh, if only! If only this were something we could fix with a hug!

"Li, there's... I..." the words don't make sense in my head. "You trust me, don't you?" I finally plump for. "You trust my instincts, and... and... you believe in me right?"
I'm grasping at straws here, but I know he'll acquiesce to this at least.

"Yeah..." he replies slowly, trying to follow my thought pattern - which is so jumbled I'm struggling to keep track of it.

"Well... I need you to trust and believe me now. I need you to get them and get in the car, and drive away - fast - as far as you can. I need you to promise me..." my words falter as he steps even closer. I know better than to step back this time. If I do he'll grab me for sure.

"Lauren, what happened?" he asks. His hand raises towards my face and I grab his arm through his coat to stop him. Please let it only transfer skin to skin! I think furiously as I hold his almost limp arm away from me, pushing it slowly and gently back to him whilst trying to watch both his hands. If he grasps my hand we're screwed - because I can't let him pass this on... but I can't let him die either...

"Li, I'm sick." I say, trying to make my voice soft and honest. "Everyone in this town is sick. I saw it. They're coming to fix it though. They're going to... and if you're here they'll take you down too." My mind is flying through images of him being shot, run over, blown up - every scenario makes me want to cry "And if you touch me you'll be sick too."

"Don't be silly..." He says comfortingly, trying once more to stroke my cheek. I grasp both his arms this time to be sure. I push them to his sides and hold him there.

"Li... God Li I wish I were wrong - I hope I'm wrong... but if I am you can come back, you see? You can come back in say... four days time... and if I was wrong, if I'm wrong, you can come get me and call me a silly fish, and be mad at me for making you worry... you can lock me in the loony bin for all I care! But please - what if I'm right?" The torrent falls out of my mouth unbidden. "What if I'm right and this whole town is about to be wiped from the earth with us along with it? What if I'm really so contagious that you touching me will kill you slowly too? What if my vision was real?"
The word vision has his eyes widening as he starts to understand my train of thought. The cogs click into place and he starts analysing my theory.

"But... Lauren... it's just-"

"Don't you dare! Li - Don't you dare say it isn't real!" I'm practically in tears now. "You can't pick and choose times for this to be real! You can't talk to spirits and astral project when you want to have a bit of magic in your life, then discount a vision when it comes!"

His eyes are watering too, and he shakes his head. The words are caught up somewhere as he swallows the tears down again.
"But, it can't be right... and even if it is I can't leave you." he manages to say. His voice hardens and he adds "I wont leave you."
I can see his resolution forming, but I need time to work out how to break it.
"I told you before - if the apocalypse happens, there's no one else I want to be holding hands with than you. We live together, we die together."

"But this isn't the apocalypse!" I cry - can't he see that? "This is just an epidemic. This is just me dying. You don't have to! You can live. You have to live! I won't let you die! I wont!"

"Oh, and I'm just supposed to let you die?!" he yells, loosing his composure. "I'm supposed to leave you here to die!? NO! I wont!"

Some how his arms are now on mine instead of me holding his. But it's through coats still, so hopefully he's still safe. Still immune. He holds me just below the shoulders and I can't meet his eyes for a second. I know I would never leave him to die alone - but I still need him to live.

My chin raises as I sniff away the tears "You have to. You have to save them. Only you can do it Li. You have to get them out of here. It's our duty."
I lay a heavy emphasis on the word duty, hoping he'll remember his ever quoted saying "Duty is heavier than a mountain, death as light as feather."
I see the pain cross his face.

"They'll be ok. We'll explain. We'll say we want to stay here alone for a few days..." but he's not sure either.

"What about when they're stopped by a patrol and they say 'Oh yeah, we stopped in that town, had a look around... left our friends there actually. Gonna go pick 'em up in a couple days'... how long would they live then?" How I wish he had an answer for that. How I wish we could explain and be believed... so that I don't have to face this alone. I've always been scared of dying alone. I never thought I'd have to face it so soon.
Still, dying alone is a small price to pay if it means the person dearest to me gets to live.

He looks down at me with eyes so big you could fit the entire universe in them.
"Come with us." He whispers. "We'll pretend we've never been here..."

I shake my head. Too risky.
"I might infect you - or them - or everyone we ever meet. And even if I didn't if we were checked by the patrol for any symptoms and I had one we'd all die. Safety precaution. They'd know we lied anyway." I'd already thought of that.

"But..." he's trying desperately to find something. "But can't we just..." he looks around at all the buildings "And all these people... is there nothing...?"
No, there's nothing we can do. Too late. Like I said before.
I just look at him with regret in my eyes, knowing he'll come to the same conclusion and not like it one bit.

"Save who you can. Before it's too late." I tell him, placing my hands on his chest gently and pushing slightly. It's so hard not to cling onto him. I want him to hold me while I cry, I want him to tell me it isn't real, and that we can keep going on this road trip and still act out our plans... but we both know that can't happen. He lets go and steps away slightly. He's careful not to touch my hands.

"We can't even hug goodbye..." he whispers, still sounding like he's about to cry. It's not quite a statement, not quite a question, and it makes me want to cry.
No. We can't even have that final comfort. Too risky.
I can't kiss him goodbye, can't hug him... can't even shake his hand! That's the real torture.
"I'll come back." he says, determined. "I'll come back for you."

"Four days." I tell him. "Not before. Understand?"

He frowns in frustration. "Is that when...?"
I shake my head.
"That's when it'll be safe." I explain.

"How long?" he asks. I so wish I could lie and tell him I don't know.
I can't get the words out anyway, so I hold up a single finger, unable to look at anything but his feet. I hear the gasp that sounds like he's had the wind knocked out of him.
No, my mind whispers You can't save me... in answer to his internal question. Not enough time to get them safe and come back for me before... everything...

The others are starting to come back. I touch his arm through his coat.
"I love you."
Then I'm running. The others wont refrain from touching me like Li managed to. I have to get away, and hope Li will do as I asked, and cover for me.

I hope he's smart enough to tell them I got out after this god forsaken place and probably walked back to it. Hope he's smart enough to keep the windows rolled up so they can't expect them of air born transfer. Hope anyone who stops them doesn't shoot first and ask questions later.

The dream shifts then, and I'm stood on the street with the towns folk. Some are grey and haggard - they look like they're about to go savage and maul the oncoming soldiers - others are pink and scared. Not as far along as the others. A little girl is near me, she's crying and hasn't been able to find anyone she knows - but now she's too scared to move.
I can't work out why they aren't shooting yet.
The little girls tears are silent, but I still can't help bending and picking her up. She clings to me for her life, and I wish with all my heart I could save her. She must be six, maybe seven - the same age as my youngest niece. I hold her to me and rock her. She doesn't need to die scared at least.

One of the soldiers has a tannoy of some kind - his voice comes booming towards us in a broken distortion that makes the girl whimper and hide into my shoulder. My hand strokes her hair and I shush her gently. They're giving us orders - telling us to line up or something - I can't make it out. My instant thought is of concentration camps. Why else would they not be shooting?
But it's pretty clear that they're simply herding us to where things will be more easily contained. We end up in a large football pitch, and the hysteria is starting to build.
The little girl is taken from me by a young man, who she squeals with recognition at. Her brother I'd guess. He thanks me with his eyes, unable to say a word. He's shaking in a thin vest top, though I can't tell whether it's from cold or fear. His eyes tell me he knows, as well as I do, that we aren't going to live through this.

A soldier marches next to me as we file through the streets towards the football ground, and, unburdened, I ask him "Are we to be screened, or is infection control to be total?"
I somehow manage to ask him calmly, like another officer - like a soldier in arms.

"Sorry ma'am, the orders are for total infection control." He actually does look sorry as he looks at me. I've crossed my arms behind my back to try and control myself better, and have forced my chin to stay up. I nod once, curtly.
"Yes sir."

"Are you from the forces?" he asks, the address clearly implying more than I had intended. It makes me smile. I suppose the British accent and upright posture in a crowd of scared, cowering people makes me seem more rigid and ready for war.
"No, sir." I admit, turning to look at him with a small grin. I'm surprised to see he's probably as old as me, if that. Good looking, but young and maybe a little scared. "I didn't even get into the cadets if I'm honest sir."

This makes him smile too. He's too young to really be called sir, but the respect for others that my parents always instilled in me makes it hard not to call any man of undetermined age "sir" - though perhaps I'm clipping it a little short since he's army.
"Could have fooled me." he says, shrugging his gun a little higher. I realise for the first time that none of them are wearing gas masks. They don't believe it to be an airborne pathogen. That's good - it gives Li and the others more of a chance.

"To be fair, I'm not from around here. I probably just threw you off with my accent sir." I smile again, thinking of Li and the others safe and sound. It's easy to make banter with the man about to kill you when you know your friends are safe. "Don't even know the name of this town if I'm honest."

"Where you from?" he asks, clearly not minding the chat himself. I wonder if there are many people who would talk in such a friendly manner to him considering the task at hand. Grim, is the way I would describe the look on the soldiers around hims faces. Scared, angry, confused faces look up from my side of the crowd. Our voices are lost in the grumble and sound of the massing crowd. Every street we pass increases our number. We're being herded like sheep.

"England." I tell him "The midlands..." I trail off trying not to think of my family. What will they think? How will Li explain? Will they understand? Will they forgive him?
An accident. They'll call it an accident. I got out of the car and wouldn't come back. They tried to get me to get back in the car - but I'm so stubborn. They just left me for an hour or so to cool down...
Creating alibi's seems to be my new talent.

He whistles. "Long way from home. Damn, what a piece of shit luck this is for you." His tone makes it sound like I've had some inconvenience on my trip, rather than have managed to get stuck somewhere I'm bound to loose my life.
No point crying over spilt milk though.
I shrug.
"Oh well, always did have bad timing." I say, trying to shrug it off with a bit of nonchalance.

He frowns then. I see it from the corner of my eye.
"I'm so sorry." He says after a moment. He seems genuinely depressed. "If there was someway..."
I nod, trying not to get emotional. It's a thank you, and he understands. I can't thank him for caring - it's his obligation as a person - but I can't hate him for having such a difficult job to do. It's a shit place to be in for either of us.
After a moment I regain my composure and manage to smile at him, though I can't take the sadness out of it. He returns it.

"Private Sanders." he says, almost holding out his hand for me. Those hands aren't gloved though and I stare at it briefly before he removes it, cursing at his stupidity.
I half laugh.
"If you're gonna go around doing that, at least wear gloves." I say "That's how I got in this mess."

He blushes slightly. It makes me smile.

"Citizen Bland," I reply after all thought of touching one another has abated. "You can call me Lauren if you feel the need though."

Part of me realises that I shouldn't be talking to this man. This man is about to stand back in a line with all the other soldiers here and kill an entire towns worth of people. Better for both of us to have no sympathy for the other. Well, better for him if he can see us as something other than people. Maybe he's realising this too, because he becomes quiet.

"Hey, you know how you said if you could... you know..." I start up, dropping the formality of 'sir' now that we know each others names. He looks at me briefly as if scared I'm about to ask him to help me escape. The fear seems more that he might consider it - which is an odd feeling. "If you could help..." I manage.
He looks at me sideways and nods slightly.
"Could you make it quick?" I ask. It has just occurred to me this is the only chance I'll get to beg for that mercy. If I can't have this life, I'd at least like to end it with as little pain as possible.
His eyes go slightly rounder for a moment. Then he nods curtly again.
"Thank you Private Sanders."
I stop glancing at him and start scanning the crowd. It's getting bigger and bigger - who would have thought this many people would be in a town this size.
That's when I see him.

I'd recognise that hair on those tall shoulders anywhere. His head is whipping around, eyes searching for a person he recognises. Not quite moving with the flow, but not quite struggling against it yet. My world crumbles.

He's supposed to be safe. He's supposed to live. Why is he here?

Without thinking I dive through the crowd towards that beacon of black hair. All thought of Private Sanders and his promise of a quick death evaporating.
I don't bother shouting, because he wouldn't be able to hear me. The closer to the center of this mass of bodies I get the louder the babble becomes. The river of people doesn't quite part for me, but everyone is looking for someone, and everyone makes allowances for a girl running fixedly into the centre of the crowd.
I get to him and touch his arm through the same coat he was wearing when he left.
He doesn't notice in the crush, and I squeeze his arm.

He turns to look at me, skimming over my face in a distracted manner, before doing a double take and turning to look at me fully. As he turns his arms go round me and he drags me to him.

"I couldn't leave you." he says in my ear. "I had to come back."
I hit him, hard, on the shoulder and call him an idiot, and a fool, and as many names as I can think of with a single breath.

"You're supposed to be safe!" I cry, unable to pull away from him as the crowd sweeps us along. My feet are barely touching the floor "You're supposed to live so that this isn't all in vain!"

"Loreal, do you think I'd let you do this on your own?" The tears in my eyes are sparkling, making him look unearthly. "You're my best friend - stupid. We face these things together or not at all."

Slowly the crowd stops, everyone is vying for a spot as far from the gunmen as possible and we get pushed to the edge of the crowd, still holding hands tighter than ever before.
Tonight, we face our death. There's no one I'd rather be holding hands with as I look out at that sea of darkness, knowing that death is coming - soon. My only regret is not saving him.
I trust him to have got the others safe... but why could the silly boy not stay with them.
Four days I told him. Four. Not one. Four.
I should have told him they would be here in three days. He wouldn't have rushed back then. He would have made a plan. It would have given him the time to miss all of this.

"There's no one I'd rather be holding hands with right now." he whispers in my ear, echoing my thoughts.
I want to tell him I'd rather he'd stayed the hell away and lived like I'd commanded him to, but I can't.
"I always hoped I'd spend the rest of my life with you..." I say "I only wish it had lasted a little longer."

We hear the guns raised, and the screaming starts, the running and thudding into each other, the trying to get away. Li and I step forwards away from it. With him here, I'm not afraid. I don't even mind if Private Sanders isn't the one in front of me, the one promising a quick death. The fencing is heaving behind us as people claw at it, trying to escape. We hear trucks hiss as the stop right against them. People scream as the metal crushes the fingers they have trapped between truck and fence.

I always thought I'd want to close my eyes when death came, but now I don't want to look away.
Bring it on. part of me thinks. One of us shivers - maybe both of us do - and we step closer together, arms going around one another wishing we could protect each other from what's coming. But both of us remain looking out into that darkness as we hear the safety click of a hundred guns.
"To die would be a very big adventure." I say into the darkness, realising we two stand alone between a sea of hysteria and a wall of necessity.
"Then lets go adventure together." Li replies.



That's where the dream ends. Sometimes we're about to be toasted by flame throwers, and sometimes he doesn't come back and I stand alone against the darkness happily, knowing he's safe. Sometimes we don't die - something magical protects us... but always, always, I face this dark death head on, without fear.
It makes me hope that one day I'll be able to do that. Not cower from my death, as lots of people do, but embrace it (when necessary) and accept it with my head held high. Life is not eternal, it doesn't last - we all must die. I just hope to do it with a little dignity is all.

I would call this recurring dream a nightmare, but there's no real fear in it. There's sadness at the loss, and anger at the injustice it always seems to incur... but no fear. Maybe I need to develop a nice healthy fear of death... but it seems so pointless. Who wants to spend their last moments on this earth in fear? I'd rather spend them thinking about the good times, the great people I've shared this life with, and the things I achieved - rather than be scared of the pain or what comes next, rather than regret things or start missing people.
Regret, I have learnt, is the mother of all fuckups. Not assumption (although it's probably the father of them all) but the regret we feel about things that can't be changed. I think I hate regret so much because it's unproductive. Assumption can be productive or counter-productive. Regret is just a burden.

If you can, take this little advice and let go of that regret.
Let go of long held prejudices and resentments.
Forget the grudges, and the pains others cause you.
Even if you can't forgive (either yourself or others) at least don't dwell on what you think are mistakes. Because they're as much what make you who you are as the things you got right. Try to simply learn from your actions, and not analyse them in painful scrutiny till they're etched in deep welts on your heart. All you'll do is hurt yourself by holding onto pain or anger.

For now, be happy in all you can, and look for hope in all you can't.


Blessed Be xx