Dell's Journey

Chapter 10: The Dream

In his dream Dell saw a suburban, ranch-style home

with T-111 siding, built most likely between 1978 and 1980.

The color of the house escaped his notice the way things do

in dreams, giving way instead to a velvety impressionism.

(I think it may have been very dark brown.) All around the

house were low shrubs and arborvitae bushes that grew up

about 5 feet or so, and little flowering plants made the

door and porch area look pretty. The sky was blue,

strikingly so. The lawn was a trophy specimen of the

suburban green: immaculately trimmed and edged, uniform

color, great to look at. The air was warm, and a light

breeze was blowing. It was very, very peaceful.

1. No car noises.

2. No racket, but

3. I think there may have been birds occasionally.

Everything about the house was normal, yet not normal

because it was so normal. It was like a real-life study of

Plato's forms: here was the essence of ranch-style homes in

the essential location on the essential day of early summer

from which all other particulars are derived and compared,

but which one is not technically supposed to ever see.

The house was set upon a hill with the earth sloping

steeply down-ward right in the middle, so if he were to go

around either side into the backyard, he would descend

sharply. It was steep enough that he couldn't see anything

in the backyard. But he could see that there was a

beautiful valley-type land and town a fair distance below,

or rather, he could sense it.

As I said, the house felt strange because it was too

perfect. There was something that struck Dell as

untrustworthy in that perfection, just like a girl too

done-up to be a real human-creature. The truth is Dell

could not quite tell if this was a good dream or a scary

dream. The other powerful sensation was a profound

loneliness, a sense that even though this was a house,

there was no one at home.

I don't know if this combination of feelings would

terrify you. For me it is like the time I arrived home

from school, walking over the mild crest of the cul-de-sac,

to see dad's car parked in the driveway at 2:30 in the

afternoon. I knew for sure that something was wrong (this

was when my Grammy died). Combine that sense of "off-ness"

with the popular fear of being the last person on earth, of

missing the rapture, of getting separated from your mother,

or of being accidentally left on the moon as a highly

unfortunate astronaut. Aloneness. Some have hypothesized

that that is what hell may be: total isolation.

The point is that this dream gave Dell those two

dreadful feelings:

1. That something normal and beautiful (for it is

normal things that are the most beautiful) was

darkly flawed, and

2. Supreme isolation.

And yet he did not want it to end.

He had the notion that the smoldering fright of the

scene was only temporary, and that soon, something would be

peeled away and the house would be what it truly ought to

be: the perfect house in the perfect world of serenity,

safety, and beauty. That was the paradox of the house

dream for Dell: it was peace, and it was not peace – at

least not yet.