Crazy Dreamz : IFC S2 R31 - Entry

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It was a cool weather and I was walking home from my new school with my girlfriends. The path home led to my former house in another city, four hours’ drive away. It was completely normal.

Somehow, the weather had changed to an intensely hot one. We were now at the mechanic’s workshop and my new friends had given way to friends from my old school. I couldn't name them, or figure out how many there were - it didn't matter.

Our bags were strapped to our backs, our school sandals in our hands while we walked barefoot. As usual, the sand at the mechanic’s shop was heavily stained with engine oil and it burned our feet in the hot sun. We go on tiptoe, half-running to get away fast. Some of my friends try to cool the hot sand with leftover sachets of water in their hands.

Now past the mechanic’s workshop, I recognise the path that leads to Aunt Margaret’s. It was normal.

I arrive home. Home was Aunt Margaret’s house but it was our house too and nothing was unusual about that. Dad was in the toilet as usual. The toilet door was shut as usual. And dad and I had a conversation through the closed door as usual. Nothing was discussed that I ever remembered; I don't know why the chat couldn't wait until he got out.

The inside of the toilet would be dark but I could always see dad on the toilet seat. The door was shut, I wasn't supposed to be seeing inside the toilet, but I was. And it was normal.

I never saw dad’s face - nor Aunt Margaret’s. There were other people in the house - a mix of people from my old and new homes whose lives didn't intersect. I couldn't identify any of them, not Aunt Margaret’s husband or her children, or even my mum. They faded in the background.

I had this dream repeatedly after my dad passed on. I was eleven and had to move in with my uncle’s family in another city that was four hours’ drive away. But in my dreams, both cities were linked and it only took me minutes to walk from one to the other. Talk about super powers, the power of dreams, lol.

The mechanic workshop experience was an actual carry-over from real life. While dad was alive, my friends and I actually used to pass through the workshop on our way back from school, and walk barefoot on the hot sand. Back then, school sandals were mostly made from rubber and ours were sometimes so badly cut that we would choose to remove them at some point and go barefoot.

However, dad always being in the toilet and chatting from inside in the dream was a totally new one to me, lol. And Aunt Margaret is still kicking, by the way!

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I don't dream much these days. I am mostly alert to getting up for some intellectual work in the night so I think technically this reduces my ability to go into the deep kind of sleep that usually lead to dreams. My theory.

But back in my undergraduate days I had this real naughty dream too a couple of times: a lion would escape from the university zoo and go on rampage in the community. Fortunately, I never saw it kill anyone but of course, it caused a lot of pandemonium, chasing people up the paths that led to the lecture rooms and into the >halls of residences.

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It seemed all those fears gathered in me because I would wake up really jittery when the lion was about to close up on me.

Full disclosure: I had actually given thought to this phenomenon before it began to haunt me in my sleep. I cannot particularly remember whether I visited the zoo about the time the nightmare commenced but remember staring at the walls that enclosed it on my way to classes and thinking what if… I knew there were two lions in there then, I had seen them during a visit.

Also, some years before I gained admission to the institution, there had been a widely publicised report of a clergyman who escaped the zookeepers’ vigilance and found his way into the lions’ enclosure, much to the bewilderment of everyone. I don't know what he was thinking, I suppose he figured he was some modern day biblical Daniel. Of course, unbelieving, the lion mauled him. That story stayed with me for years and I suspect it fuelled my unsettled feelings about the zoo. I did graduate in one piece, thank God, lol.

Thanks for reading!
@boladayl

This is my entry for the IFC dreams challenge. Join us at Cryptopia!