06/06/04
Let Dead Horses Lie

I can't recall what happened first, but I believe Ma was going somewhere, maybe to work. It seemed to be a weird time for her to be leaving, or maybe the lighting was strange; I sense it was overcast or rainy or some such. I took note that she seemed to have already returned from somewhere and was now leaving again so maybe that was it. I was standing waiting for her to leave and she was talking about a lot of things. I wanted to go do something, maybe surf online or work on a book, but she turned to me and made quite a point of telling me that she'd assigned me some chore to do for her. I blinked, my mind blank, forgetting what it was. She told me she wanted some content from a graphics page (probably a webpage) printed out. I remembered now that there were about two thousand graphics on that page (or pages), and even on draft printing mode that would take FOREVER! They were small graphics, but still. I wanted to do some of MY things and printing this out for her would seriously cut into my personal time. :( Still, I reluctantly agreed to do it, and I believe Ma left. I can't remember what I did next, if I went to the computer to do as I'd promised, or to surf online, or if I went outside and forgot again about my chore. In any case I somehow ended up on what seemed to be a weird bus ride, perhaps to school or something.

This bus just drove and drove and drove, up and down hills, past an interesting countryside, on and on and on. I think it was still overcast and/or wet. By now I can't recall most of the ride at all, only that there were lots of gorgeous views despite the gloomy weather. All the terrain was unrecognizable though I felt I knew it in my dream; I sense it would have been out by Aloha State Park or some such, far out in the country with long straight stretches of road. (I've had similar dreams about being in similar places.) I stared out the windows the entire time. The only particular scene I remember of the earlier part of the ride was of driving down this steep hill; it seemed to be autumn, as a few trees were lining the road below and ahead, and they were turning red. There were a couple of houses nestled among them along the road and it looked as if it were about to lead from open countryside into a residential area, maybe like the park. This was ahead of me, yet I had a completely unobstructed view, as if I were just floating down the road by myself, with no bus around me. (I seemed to be sitting closer to the back.) I remember that as I stared at this scene I wished I'd brought the digital camera to take pictures because this ride had been so pretty. Then I told myself that pictures never come out nearly as pretty as real life, and it would be hard to get a decent picture anyway with all the motion from the bus, and the speed of the scenery flying past us. I seemed to be thinking of our Canon digital camera rather than our old Polaroid, because I thought about the high-speed shooting function--just set it to that and snap picture after picture without having to wait ages for it to prepare. I've never used that function, and even in the dream I wondered if it would even be of any use. Even if I could snap pictures more quickly, that didn't guarantee they'd turn out as nice as the real thing. :/ I seemed to be arguing with myself AGAINST the usage of a camera a very great deal. Still, I even thought about how nice a different camera might be, maybe one with a printer included so I could shoot and print out pictures immediately; I don't know why I dwelled on this so much.

I may be telling this a bit out of order but anyway...sometime along the way as we went down this steep hill with grassy open space to both sides (it looked more like country but had more of a "city feel" to it, like an industrial area was nearby), I glanced to the left and saw an odd sight. It was a big Amish carriage or buggy with two large Amish horses pulling it. They looked exactly like horses I saw in real life in some pictures of the Lancaster Amish in a puzzle series--big horses, tawny fur, offwhite manes and tails. I don't know the breed but they look like nice strong draft horses. Well, every single horse in my dream looked just the same as this. This carriage was pulled up where this street on the left side met the street we were going down, only it was way below us (it seemed further away than was possible--distortion of perspective, I guess). I was looking at it maybe from a 45-degree angle up this hill. The first thing I had noticed about it was that one of the pair of horses was lying on the road on its side. In fact, this horse was the ONLY thing I saw at first, just lying there, still in its harness and reins and such. It was simply lying on its side and at first I hoped it was only wounded but then I realized it must be dead. Then the rest of the details around it began to emerge into view, as if I'd had tunnel vision on this dead horse before; I think I noticed the black carriage behind it first, then the Amish driver--a man with a beard and the typical wide-brimmed black Amish hat and vest--he seemed to be standing to the left side of the vehicle (my right, or rather, on the further side since it was facing the road we were on)--and then maybe other people, city people, standing around it. I think another man dressed in modern clothes was there and I understood somehow that he was a construction worker or some sort of industrial type, and this Amish man's horses had been towing something for him. It was weird, but I realized this now, that in this area the Amish used their horses to do pulling and towing work for some of the "modern" people, in exchange for something like money or goods. (Why the modern people didn't just use machinery, I don't know. I feel perhaps the horses did work that machines could not do, or perhaps the two were used in conjunction. The fact that the Amish were willing to participate in work like this was what surprised me even more than the fact that these workers were using Amish horses for modern building and such!)

I believe the last thing I noticed, oddly enough, was that the dead horse was not the only horse there; it had a partner, still standing beside it and also still in harness and reins. This horse could not move because the dead horse would end up dragging it down, so it just stood there waiting for the matter to be resolved. (I keep wanting to say they were yoked to the carriage, though I don't know enough about horses and carriages to say how exactly they are attached, just that one had fallen in the reins while the other still stood.) I realize it makes no sense that a buggy or carriage would be attached if these horses were being used for hauling or whatever, but it made sense in the dream. *shrug*

Anyway...I felt sad for this poor horse and knew it had just been pushed beyond its limits. The Amish man and the "modern" man (sorry I can't think of another way to differentiate them; I know the Amish are modern too) stood here trying to figure out what to do while traffic either slowed or continued around them. Everybody seemed very detached and neutral but I felt very sad. The bus continued, and I wished the poor horse hadn't been pushed so hard.

More driving, more nice scenery. Then, maybe off to the right, I noticed...another dead Amish horse! At least I think it was dead, though it might have been only injured or badly wounded. It, too was one of a pair, and had fallen in the reins. Just like the first I believe it too had been pushed beyond what was reasonable and had simply collapsed from exhaustion and strain. I can't specifically remember its companion horse but I think it was okay, or still standing, just like before. I felt even sadder now. And not long after this I spotted a THIRD Amish horse, this one a single one, that was either dead or wounded or too exhausted to continue. I know I saw at least one dead and two dead or dying/exhausted horses as we drove along these hills. All had been worked too hard pulling things for the city people, and I felt just awful for them. I never felt angry with the people for pushing them too much, though I believe I felt that both the city people and the Amish were responsible. After all, the city people were the ones who had "hired" these horses to pull such great loads, and the Amish owners were the ones who had loaned them out and done the actual pushing. They should have known better, just how much they could expect from these poor horses. I felt there were probably even more horses that were suffering.

I think at some point in here there was a guy on a bike without a helmet, and he was riding recklessly near the bus and down the hilly roads, but I'm not sure. Much of this part of the dream gave me a feeling of things that were not safe--people/animals participating in dangerous actions that could seriously hurt them, people behaving foolishly and making foolish decisions. At least that was what was being proven by all the sights around me.

Well, I then somehow seemed to end up in what looked to be the junior high school gymnasium, though I believe it was still supposed to be the bus, only parked now. Rather than sitting in a small seat I seemed to be in the gym with the bleachers to my left, which would put the regular exit behind me; I would have been staring at the wall, except there was a TV or screen here, and there was a lady DJ and a male DJ bantering. Since they were radio DJs I never saw them but the things they were talking about occasionally appeared on the screen. I was with the others who had been on the ride, maybe students around my age (I seem to be a student in many dreams--I can't be sure if I was here, but it's the best guess I have, considering I was on a bus o_o ). I know at least one guy was sitting not far from me, maybe in the seat in front. The big screen was raised a bit so I could see it ahead of us; I seemed to be paying more attention than many others, though I can't be sure since I never really looked at them, and I seemed to be lost in a world of my own anyway. ^_^

I think I had my bookbag on the floor to my left and was leaning over, digging through it for something. The guy ahead at least seemed to be paying attention to things. The two DJs sounded like the man and the woman DJ who host the morning show on WKPK, a local station; the woman's name is Heather Lee but I can't remember the man's (Rob, I think); they tend to joke around a lot, and Heather is often the "straight man" to the guy's joking. As I dug around for whatever I heard the guy DJ casually ask, "Who's this blurnt?"--and I looked up at the screen to see what he meant.

I specifically remember the word he used--"blurnt." I sense it was meant as some sort of insult, possibly meaning a fat, slovenly, lazy person, though I believe even in the dream I wasn't positive of its exact meaning. On the screen I saw a cartoon of a famous person. I don't think I recognized him at first. In fact, my first sight of him, I can't remember what he looked like. The lady DJ--Heather?--must have been looking as well, for she was trying to remember who he was.

"Ohhhh, I know who that is!" she exclaimed. "I just can't remember his name...it's on the tip of my tongue...I can't remember."

The guy DJ finally revealed who the cartoon was--and it was the lead singer of a popular religious-type band like Creed. "Ohhhhhh!" "Heather" exclaimed this time. "I KNEW it was him, but I couldn't remember!" She started chattering about why she couldn't recall who it was, and stated how silly she felt that she'd failed to recognize somebody so famous. I think somewhere in here I started feeling the lady DJ was less like Heather Lee and more like Marg Helgenberger, the blond actress on CSI. I think I took my eyes away from the screen, but then looked up again. The image had changed slightly, I think.

Now the cartoon resembled a muscular guy with long curly blond hair, and he was dressed like a Greek or Roman god--white toga, sandals, maybe a laurel wreath on his head. I believe he was facing slightly left. He was smiling and looked almost like he could have come from a Dudley Do-Right cartoon (only not so caricaturey--his head was in proportion to his body and such). I think this is what the drawing had looked like before, only now it had been modified. For attached to the guy's right shoulder (on my left) was...a little cartoony Amish horse. It looked as if it had been cut out and pasted there, because its mouth was clamped onto his shoulder and its body was sticking out stiff in the air behind it. It was still goldish colored, but this was a cartoon, and the more I looked at it the less like a horse it looked. It seemed to have some black markings, maybe around the eyes, and even seemed to look more like a jackal or something. I think the guy DJ had meant it to look like some kind of freaky zombie horse biting this religious singer's shoulder, but it ended up looking more like some other kind of animal more prone to biting things. The significance of this? I have no clue, aside from the feeling that it had been stuck in there to make fun of the religious singer. The background of the entire cartoon image, by the way, was bright medium blue, just like those TV screens on Jeopardy! It was just the Greek-looking guy, the horse on his shoulder, and this blue background.

I laughed aloud, though, because the image was so goofy. I think the others in the gym laughed too, just chuckled. Then another cartoon image appeared, though it seemed to have no relation to the first and I can't remember what was even said about it. It was a more cartoony-looking character, short and squat, kind of like Little Caesar but it didn't make me think of Greeks or Romans like the pop singer had. This cartoon had a sneer on his face and he had this wavy hair that just SWOOPED up and back like a wave, or like the hair of the Big Boy mascot, only I think it was blond. He smirked and pointed at his hair, his hand moving back and forth and back and forth to indicate it. Again I let out this big "HA HA!" The guy in the seat ahead of me--or wherever he was--turned and peered back at me, as nobody else had laughed, but I pretended not to see him. I was the only one to find this particular image funny, but I didn't get the feeling it wasn't supposed to be funny. Rather I got the feeling that I was the ONLY one in the room who got the intended joke, or at least who found it humorous. I didn't feel as stupid as I would in real life, but I also told myself not to laugh so loudly the next time.

Then the guy DJ, I think, said something, and the image switched. It was still the same smirking toony guy, but instead of pointing at his hair, I believe he pointed at his crotch, which now seemed to be offscreen and out of sight. In fact, with the way he moved his hand to point downwards, his hand went out of the frame too, so one couldn't be positive that's what he was pointing at, though I gave a good guess. I believe I knew what the toon was saying. It was something about a person's hair size and style reflecting their...size in another department. o_o; In short, if you have big hair, you must have a big penis, or maybe he meant that if you have big hair, you're compensating for your lack of a big penis. Whatever the meaning was, it was still just as amusing to me, and I laughed again. The others must have thought I was nuts. I felt like everyone else was kind of naive not to get the point of the joke. In reality, such a thing probably wouldn't have made me laugh at all.

I realized that the way the cartoon's hand moved out of frame like that, back and forth, almost made it look like he could be masturbating!! But I don't think anyone else noticed this, so I sure didn't point it out. Once again I felt wiser than the rest of them.

At this point the guy DJ started offering apologies for his earlier behavior. He felt he shouldn't have shown the little horse biting the religious pop singer, as that had been a poke at the musician; and he especially apologized for calling him a "blurnt." He felt contrite for launching such an ad hominem attack; he'd called him that only in jest, but on further reflection, he knew the name was not deserved; the singer was a hard-working person who had achieved the fame and respect he deserved, so he should not have called him a blurnt. (This may be where I got the idea of what "blurnt" meant.) And I believe that was when I awoke, as the specific word "blurnt" was still in my head, so I wrote it down before I could forget it, as I often tend to do with words heard in dreams.



2004 Dreams
HOME