Scattered Dreams & Dragonflies

A loss and a shadow

My eyes opened amidst a crowd of people. Surrounded by four shiny wooden walls, I was greeted by a gloomy, melancholic sight. In the eyes of many, there was sadness, lasting sorrow, and misery. Tears ran rampant in every direction as people moved slowly around me. In the moment, I felt a sort of empathy towards them. Such is the human connection we carry. We are bound to one another by our emotions. Some connections that help us unite with those around us put me on a direct collision course with their aligned feelings.

Those closer to me had no resemblance to known people in my life. But in this setting, they seemed to represent familiarity to a degree. Maybe friends, maybe family? Who knows? All I did know is that I remained surrounded by a sea of depression, scaled on many levels. Searching for meaning around me, I saw a corner with beautiful bouquets of flowers, sitting amongst dimly lit candles. A picture in the middle of the beautifully colored arrangements stood proudly. The bouquets, wrapped neatly by ribbons carrying unreadable cursive, stood at the sides of a picture. To me, the picture was indiscernible. I could see the remnants of a face covered by black paint and what I could describe as light fogginess. This led me to believe I had no connection to the person in question, or so I thought.

Amongst light banter from the people around me, I could see another building come into view in the distance through the door. From what I could see, the insides resembled those of the room I was in. The rooms were separated by a ray of sunshine and a dirt-covered road. As my eyes slowly gravitated towards the entrance of the adjacent room, I could see a group of men pulling a rather big drawer outward. I could see the men struggling subtly with the weight of the drawer as they pulled it. Sooner than later, the fruits of their efforts were completed, as they pulled from within the drawer what could be seen as a casket. A white-covered casket, adorned with gold overlays, was slowly carried by the men outwards. As they did, a sudden silence came over the crowded room I stood in, all looked on with respect as the men pulled the casket forward and out of visibility. Smoothly, and without so much as a word, the people around me moved in silence with the intent of following the men carrying the casket. Within moments, the room was empty, and being the last one behind, I could see the crowd as they slowly got lost in the distance.

Instead of following, as everyone did, I decided to go to the bathroom. As we routinely do, I tended to my biological needs... I peed, okay? Not in the bed... no. The bathroom, I was led to believe, was not far away from the wake being held. I could remember feeling the need to use the bathroom, and before I knew it, I had found myself surrounded by even closer walls than before. The bathroom had the same continuous aesthetic that the previous rooms had: four surrounding wooden walls, one with a small window with pinkish curtains. The remaining light of the afternoon gave me enough visibility as I slowly looked around the inside. Beneath the curtain, a smaller-than-usual sink was seen. Everything, from the faucet to the very sink drain, was cheap plastic. I remember trying to maneuver around it as I tried to exit. With every step, I could feel the graze of things around me: the gentle but somewhat itchy sensation of the pink curtain grazing my arm, the bendy plastic of the cheap sink as it hit my lower back, the cold ceramic material of the small toilet bumping against my knee. It felt like a whirlwind of stimulation from every angle. It remained this way until I managed to find the exit of the accursed bathroom.

Once I was out, I found myself inside my car. Well... it was definitely a car. Observing it closely, I noticed it bore no resemblance to my actual cars, which are smaller. This car, even in the pitch black of night, seemed to contain more space inside. As the night progressed, I noticed I was already in motion. I sat at the wheel without recollection of ever thinking of a destination or even considering moving in the first place. That was clear in my mind, but something else took priority at that very moment. The car had an unusual shape to it. From where I was sitting, I had a clear image of the exterior of the car in my mind. Even without recalling getting inside the car, without seeing it beforehand, even without recollection of finding my car and exiting the wake, I had vivid imagery of the car's shape and why it drove the way it did.

The car was oddly shaped. In my mind, the image of a car resembling the front part of two pickup trucks put together back-to-back slowly formed. Oddly enough, the very image, as well as driving such a questionable-looking design, didn't faze me in the slightest. Instead, I took it in the moment as something of daily use.

I found myself looking at the road in front of me. Upon closer inspection, my driving at that very moment was something that deviated from the human-established norms of routine driving. The image I had found myself driving through, almost effortlessly, showed to be the reflection of my true path. I was driving in reverse, staring at the path across the rearview mirror. The only light available to me at that time was the dim reverse lights from the back, now frontal part of the car.

So, as if by muscle memory, as if I were a man who did such a reckless thing daily, I drove hastily up a dimly lit mountainside, in reverse, in my oddly shaped car. I drove this way for a good amount of time. Even if I couldn't measure it accurately, it still felt like a long way. At a peculiar moment in time, I felt like I had briefly lost my exit. So, in the continuous pitch black, I proceeded to find a secure way to turn around and course correct. I remember thinking about what I was doing at the moment. I remember being aware of the shape of my car, the way I was driving, and the options at my disposal.

I was driving in reverse; therefore, I could just go forward and continue on my way without giving much thought to the option of manually turning around. And so, without giving it much more thought, I stopped on a dime and switched my car to "Drive." This time, I noticed that my focus being in reverse, the frontal lights of the car were turned off. Driving this way, at night, within the narrow roads of the mountains could prove to be a difficult task. So, upon initiating movement forward, I reached down to turn on my headlights.

Before I could do so, an image in front of me caught my eye. As I had explained earlier, it was pitch black, and being able to detect or describe anything in detail would prove to be a tall task. However, my eyes during the trip had slowly adjusted to the scarce light around me, so I had managed to at least detect the silhouette of something on the road. Instinctively, I decided to stop. I had no intention of running over any animal or person that could cross onto the road. So, I remained detained, trying to decipher what stood before me, but a few steps in distance. I could remember seeing a silhouette of a creature, standing on all fours. It seemed to be shrouded in a dark grayish hue as it rested its whole body on its particularly big hind legs.

Before long, my curiosity got the better of me, and I proceeded to turn on the headlights. Truth be told, I still have no idea what it was or why it stood there idly, even with the light completely showing its presence. I remember not being able, even in the overwhelmingly powerful lighting provided, to describe the creature better than what I did in the dark. I do remember the last image I saw, though. I had begun to grow impatient at the lack of reaction from the being, and regardless of any red flags in my head, of any possibility of danger, with the headlights still on, I proceeded to let down my driver's side window. And as soon as it was completely down, I let out a strong "HEY!" as if prompting the creature to flee.

But instead, in the blink of an eye, I found myself attacked by the being and engulfed in darkness as the echo of my scream stretched as far as an echo could, shattering my eardrums. I woke up in shivers... And as I write it now, I still get them...