12/24/02
Lost In The Charnel House


I had a horrid, horrid dream yesterday, but I put it off so much that it's badly faded. As always. *sigh* It was so awful that when I woke up I almost wanted to cry, and I had that creepy feeling of not wanting my feet to touch the floor lest something pop out from under my bed and grab me. You know it's bad when I expect that to happen in the middle of the day.

I can't remember the beginning, as it started very innocuous. I was in some kind of store or public place with others and I seem to remember a blond lady...very cheerful, possibly college age...and something...something with colors...rainbow colors...like long glass tubes. And a big sheet of canvas. Sliding on it, or sliding down it, in this public area. Almost like a fair ride. Kind of scary, but fun. There's something else I should remember but I can't.

Somehow, I ended up back at home. And nobody seemed to be with me. I can't remember the details of how this went; sorry. A cat--Cosmas, or Pepper--was with me, wandering around at random, and that was all. It was the dead of winter and cold outside, overcast; there were no lights on in the house; maybe even the power was out. I started to wander around, wondering what was going on.

And I started coming across bodies.

Dead bodies, yes. I don't remember them wearing clothes...but they had been here a while. Their skin was mottled and discolored, pasty with patches of ugly purple. I gasped on first seeing them piled around haphazardly against the walls as if they had simply fallen where they stood. I don't think I ever questioned WHO all these people were, or how they had died...I just dreaded being alone in this house with them, and I may have called out loudly, hoping somebody else besides me was alive. My mom, my dad, anybody.

I grew panicked, and resolved not to look at the bodies; if I didn't look at them, it wouldn't be so bad. But every time I turned away from one, there would be another one. It was so awful. I made it to my room somehow and I don't recall there being any bodies in there; I started to change, I think. (Clothing, I mean.) I had my boots but they had fur in them now (my real boots don't); I was wiping snow OUT of them with my hand, and it was sticking pretty well in the toe sections of my boots. It wasn't even melting that much. I finally managed to sweep out as much as I could; I wanted my boots to be moderately dry.

The dream shifted a bit so I was instead in my parents' room, or rather, my dad's room, now, standing beside the bed. It was so dim and overcast, and there were bodies around me again. I was starting to go crazy by now. I talked aloud to the cat, and made plans. I was apparently the last person, anywhere, left alive. This knowledge made my mind nearly snap. I stood putting on heavy clothing and made my plans. "I've long wanted to walk along the railroad tracks in winter, Kitty," I said (or something to that extent). "I've always been afraid of the cold though. But if I bundle up enough, I can make it. We'll go for a long, long walk. Along the highway. We'll keep walking. Nobody can stop us. We'll walk as long and as far as we've ever wanted."

The whole time I grinned maniacally, desperately trying to avoid looking at the rotting bodies all around me. A feeling of horrible, awful loneliness sank down over me...I was the last person left, about to wander off into the cold and snow, off into God knows where...but anything, even total loneliness, was better than being HERE with these awful bodies. Being in the middle of nowhere in the dead of winter was far better than being surrounded by death and KNOWING for a fact that I was all alone.

I finished doing up my coat and got ready to scoop up the cat, hoping he'd (she'd?) comply, and leave my only home once and for all. I felt my parents were among the dead. As well as everyone else. I was afraid of catching whatever they'd had, if it was in fact a disease; I don't ever remember smelling the smell of death as I have before in my dreams, though. I remember at one point I glanced out the window, slightly opened, to see the condition of things outside, and I felt a distinctly cold gust of air brush over my face before pulling away. I usually can't feel the cold in my dreams.

And as I turned around to leave I tried so, so very hard not to look at those bodies...but they were everywhere...I felt that if I continued to see them I would go truly mad...but they were everywhere I turned...I couldn't avoid them no matter how hard I tried...

I never did get to leave that house before I woke up...what a hideous dream. Unfortunately I have no clue what it means or why it came when it did. It seems to indicate I'm surrounded by or immersed in some unpleasantness that I don't want to see, but can't avoid. But what is it?



2002 Dreams
HOME