Dream

The gossamer traces of sleep ebbed away as my whimpers and tears took hold of my senses. My husband got out of bed and gave me a tissue. Then, he held me tightly, closely and said, "It's just a dream, baby. It's only a dream."

With D by my side, I walk through the bland brown hospital lobby toward the glass elevators ("It even has glass doors") to visit a friend who just had a baby. Already waiting in front of the elevators is my friend's husband and their toddler. We give our congrats and some small talk and eventually, the elevator doors open and our troupe walk in. D presses the #3, but the displayed shows a 3, an upside-down 7, and a 1. The doors close and the elevator moves up quickly to the third floor. We arrive at the third floor, but to our surprise, the doors do not open; instead, the elevator flips upside down and moves up to the seventh floor without stopping. We grab on to the metal handlebars to avoid falling; I press the toddler between myself and the wall to keep him safe and I can feel his breath against my neck. Then, when we arrive at the seventh floor, the elevator flips again and we move one floor up. When the elevator finally stops, D and my friend's husband move toward the doors to pry them open. I am glad that D is safe because I know he doesn't like heights.

... Like most dreams, the next moments are a blur.

D and I are in the hospital parking lot walking toward his silver RSX. As we climb into his car, he says, "This is turning out to be such a bad day." He drives out onto a narrow street bedded on cobblestones. Tall dark buildings line up along both sides of the street. We turn a curve and see a huge gate decorated with lavish Oriental ornaments. Guards at the entrance are dark-skinned and seem to be of South-East Asian descent. They move aside to let us pass, but one guard motions for D to pull-over to the side of the road; it appears to be a routine road check. D turns his wheel slightly to the right and then takes off down the road, bumping the car against the cobblestones like a pebble rolling down a washboard.

"I think that guy told you to pull over."
"Forget it. It's such a bad day."

I turn around to see the guards running after us, but the road winds around and I lose sight of them. The road widens and we approach a busy intersection that has five roads meeting at its centre. Already stopped there was a police cruiser. D stops behind it. All of a sudden, the cruiser turns sideways to block us from leaving. A burly woman in uniform steps out of the car with a loudspeaker and says something to the crowd of people who have begun to gather around and look at us. She turns us into an example of what would happen to people who didn't follow rules and she glares down at us with her brown eyes.

Somehow she lets us go and we are driving away. D pulls into a back alley parking lot and sighs. He opens his driver's side door, but before he steps out, he turns to me says, "I can't wait for this day to be over."

A long-haired man behind the car catches my attention. He is holding a tan leather bag and as he passes in front of the rear left window, he pulls out a revolver. I shout for D to come back inside the car, "Get in, get in, GET IN" but it is too late for the man is already standing in front of D and pointing his gun at him. I pull D close to me and I shelter his head with my arms against my chest. "At least, he won't shoot you in the head and if he tries he will have to go through my arms," I think to myself, just as the man pulls the trigger and hits D in the the abdomen area. Then, he points the gun at me and hesitates before fleeing.

I frantically try to dial 9-1-1 on my cell phone, but I keep pressing the wrong buttons and the screen keeps showing me a map of somewhere. I try to find where I could put my hand over D's bleeding wound to stop the blood from flowing, but he grabs my wrist and says, "It's ok."

The dream ended and D is alive.