The trail was long and winding with many switchbacks. It alternated between dirt and pavement and went up a mountain. The plant life on the side was indigenous to the area, but was landscaped and in a pattern. As we were walking up, I realized that I'd been up this trail many times before and knew it well. In fact, I realized that I had memorized every particular portion of the trail that the sick woman was responsible to care for. The two that I remember were 1) A small repeating pattern found many times along side the trail in which a Bonsai tree is the defining characteristic. There were a few other shrubs around the tree that made the pattern recognizable, but the important part to me seemed to be the Bonsai tree. Every time we came by this pattern, the trees always looked identical and the shrubs were always meticulously planted to look identical as well. 2) A larger tree, maybe 10-12 feet in height with twisting branches and not a noticeably large amount of leaves (similar to a Bonsai, but with smoother bark).
As we were walking, I was seeing images of the woman caring for the trees flash through my head. It seemed I was recalling these images so that I could make sure we cared for all the exact same areas she did. Her work was very important to her and I appreciated that. I didn't know who she was, or even what her name was, but I remembered seeing her hard at work on the side of the trail often as I would walk up. I remembered seeing her on her knees, digging around in the dirt at the Bonsai patterns. I remembered seeing her up in the trees with pruning clippers. She would wear a large hat that shielded her face from the sun and always wore work gloves. She had darker skin, although, I wasn't sure if she was Asian or Spanish. I remembered that I would acknowledge her every time that I had walked by her on the trail in the past. We never spoke, I would simply nod my head and she would do the same.
I started thinking about the fact that we had now walked past several of the spots that the woman had cared for and hadn't stopped at any of them. We didn't even have clippers or any other tools to be able to do her job. Then I thought to myself “She just did this work yesterday, how much can shrubs and trees grow in a day anyway? Seriously, some times you're just way too analytical.”
Just then, my boss veered to the right down some stair that led to a beach.
“Were you at the 'Wedding a-la Z?” (*side note- this is my boss in my waking life and he is some times referred to as “Z” and is not married) and I said “Yeah, I was.” as I thought to myself: “You spent a large majority of your time talking with me at your wedding, you dumb ass.”
“It was where we first met, you know.” he said, referring to his new wife.
“Yeah, I know.” I replied. He must have told me that 2 or 3 times at the wedding, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, thinking he may have been to drunk to remember.
We walked along the beach for a short while and came to some bleachers. There were a few people sitting down, waiting for the show to begin and a man was standing up front. He was wearing a suit and holding a microphone. We sat down, but only for a minute. We got back up with several other people and headed to a drinking fountain. There was something odd about the fountain, although I can't really place what it would be. It was made of stone or cement and shaped like a large block with the spout in the middle. Nothing real unusual. As we made our way to the fountain, the group split in to two lines and alternated turns. One line approached the fountain from the front and one from the side. The people were very solemn as they drank from this fountain and it seemed almost ceremonial. When my turn to drink came, I walked up to the fountain, pretended to drink from it and moved on. I wondered if anyone had noticed that I didn't actually drink.
We sat back down at the bleachers and the man in the suit began his presentation. He was trying to teach us something or motivate us, I'm not exactly sure which. I became quickly disinterested in what he had to say as I had heard these types of things many times before. I could tell my boss was not very interested either.
I woke up inside a container. It was pitch black and as I kicked the walls, it seemed round and quite small. I was inside with another person, but I'm not sure who it was. I'm also not sure if they were unconscious or dead. The container was just big enough to hold the two of us or maybe three if we didn't need to move. I began to kick the walls violently and became very angry “THIS IS FUCKED UP!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I could feel my throat burning and could tell if I kept yelling this loud I would certainly lose my voice, but I didn't care. “THERE ISN'T ANY GREEN HERE! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! THERE ISN'T ANY GREEN AT ALL!!!”
I kicked the lid off. It was dark outside and I saw someone running out of the corner of my eye. They were darting between the containers and I was not supposed to see them. The person ran past as I was trying to climb out of the container. I couldn't make out much more than just the person's silhouette as it was quite dark and my eyes were still adjusting. After I got out, I saw the shadowy figure again and tackled it.
It was a young man, but he was not human. He had black eyes and seemed almost lizard-like. He wore a flannel shirt and seemed like he didn't live anywhere and may not have showered for days. I had him in a head lock on the ground and had a knife to his throat (I have no idea where the knife came from). His head was cocked back and he was staring in to the sky with an un-blinking look of panic on his face.
I used a very grim guttural voice and told him “I know what you're up to and I'm going to fucking kill you.” He didn't move or say anything, he just stared up with the same look of panic. I realized that I had no idea what he was up to and that I didn't feel very good about lying about it. I flipped around on top of him and pressed my forearm in to his throat to choke him. (*I started waking up at this point and was only half-dreaming and very lucid by now.) “If you don't tell me what you're up to I'm going to gut you like a fucking fish, do you understand?!” As I heard the words come out of my mouth, they didn't even feel like words I would say, but more words I would hear in a movie and had just repeated them because it was what I thought one ought to say when in my particular position.
I woke up. My body was extremely hot and my skin felt as though it was burning, but I wasn't sweating. I laid in bed for a while, thinking about the dream I'd just had. Then I walked to my computer and began typing....
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