Strange dream this morning
Dec. 24th, 2007 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonI was at the stadium-park that was down the block from me when I used to live in Fort Lauderdale. I was pushing my way through the throng of a crowd trying to find someone I had just been seperated from. I don't know why but it was important that I found them soon before something bad happened. Everyone around me was sitting in the open air bleechers, clutching at hastily packed luggage, plastic grocery bags stuffed with spilling clothes, backpacks with teddy bears hanging out, suitcases straining under their loads, duffel bags that seemed to have squirmed as if they were packed with lots of squirming animals and a series of baby strollers whose seats were filled with tv sets that hissed static broadcasts. I was inching down aisles, craning my neck for whoever I was looking for. Then someone yelled something, another got up and pointed at the sky, I looked up and saw a fleet of dragonfly helicopters approaching over the palm trees and one story roofs of my old neighborhood.
The crowd had all risen to their feet, began cheering wildly as the copters closed in and hovered over the stadium. The helicopters hovered a few hundred feet over the baseball field. I noticed that from their legs there were a series of black knotted vines that dangled down. I thought I recognzied someone at the far end of the bleechers. I yell but they don't hear me. I start making my way through the aisles of bodies and luggage but as soon as I got a few yards down the row everyone rose from their seats and began rushing towards the field. There must've been over a hundred people spilling down the wooden benches, tripping over suitcases, trampling the fallen, everyone screaming - but not like at a massacre but rather at a sold out rock concert. I saw this one woman trip, go barreling down over the aisles to sink into the surging mob. She never got back up.
I tried screaming my friends name but I couldn't hear myself over the crowd (I realize now that the blades of the helicopter made no noise). One of the duffel bags spilled open from a young kid in his army fatiuges - a dozen little snow white dogs poured out - only they had these bulbous cataracts where their eyes should have been. They began whimpering and whining and snapping blindly. I stood there unable to move. An old man with a beard filled with candy wrappers stopped next to me. Gave me the once over. Shook his head and wiped the palms of his hands across my shirt like it was a towel, before hobbling over the seats towards the fields. The front of the crowd were scrambling over the chain link fence that walled in where the batters cove where the team normally sits. One of the copters hovered slightly lower from its formation with the group. A young woman, vaguely familiar, tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a bundle of blankets. She said something about watching her baby - I nodded dumbly and took the bundle. I pulled back the blankets and saw a small babies face smiling at me. I looked up to find the woman but she was gone, replaced with the human mud slide descending down the stadium. I looked back at the baby and realized it was actually just a baby doll. The eyes sparkled lifelessly and as I peeled back the blankets I discovered that the rest of the body was a series of smashed glass and broken bottle necks.
Yet, I clung to the bundle for dear life.
Now the first of the mob were over the fence, sprinting for the helicopter, tripping, falling, some grabbing those just ahead of them by the back of their shirt and yanking them back. Then I saw the first person to arrive, some guy in a baseball cap, he reached up to one of the vines and placed it over his neck. Then two more reached him and did the same thing with the other vines.
Then I noticed they weren't vines - they were nooses.
When there were a half dozen or so of the crowd tied off, the copter began to rise slowly, pulling the people up with it, their legs kicked wildly as if trying to tread water, their torsos swayed with the copters ascent, all of them kept their hands in their pockets or tucked behind the small of their back. I could tell even from here that they were smiling these big idiot grins. Everyone goes berserk now, screaming Bloody Blue Halleujeah and fist pumping choruses of "USA-USA-USA". I watch the copter rise higher and higher, the bodies still squirming with life, until the helicopter vanished into the bright sun of a cloudless day. Then a second copter lowered itself and I could see that everyone had lined themselves up along the trajectory of the three bases and home diamond. They were no longer rushing to meet the gallows copters, but stepping slowly along the path, waiting for their turn as each person adorned themselves with the rope neck tie.
This went on for awhile. There were no end to them, the copters swarmed in and lifted back up with their kicking cargo. I was now the only person in the bleechers, the blind albino puppies were still alive, their snouts buried in discarded popcorn containers and rummaging through dropped luggage. I held the baby doll head to my chest. I caught a glimpse of my friend - I couldn't make out his features well but I knew on a gut level it was him - he looked over at me, waved as if he was leaving to go on vacation. He put the noose around his neck, gave a thumbs up, saluted me and was yanked into the air with the rest of them.
I sat there feeling this horrible lonliness come over me, I knew I was all alone now. I felt betrayed by my friend. He should've known better. I drop the bundle. The little white dogs pounce on it, begin fighting over it, snapping, barking, tearing at one another around my feet as I watch my buddy rise into the heavens his feet bucking wildly until he and the gallows copter was just a speck.
The crowd had all risen to their feet, began cheering wildly as the copters closed in and hovered over the stadium. The helicopters hovered a few hundred feet over the baseball field. I noticed that from their legs there were a series of black knotted vines that dangled down. I thought I recognzied someone at the far end of the bleechers. I yell but they don't hear me. I start making my way through the aisles of bodies and luggage but as soon as I got a few yards down the row everyone rose from their seats and began rushing towards the field. There must've been over a hundred people spilling down the wooden benches, tripping over suitcases, trampling the fallen, everyone screaming - but not like at a massacre but rather at a sold out rock concert. I saw this one woman trip, go barreling down over the aisles to sink into the surging mob. She never got back up.
I tried screaming my friends name but I couldn't hear myself over the crowd (I realize now that the blades of the helicopter made no noise). One of the duffel bags spilled open from a young kid in his army fatiuges - a dozen little snow white dogs poured out - only they had these bulbous cataracts where their eyes should have been. They began whimpering and whining and snapping blindly. I stood there unable to move. An old man with a beard filled with candy wrappers stopped next to me. Gave me the once over. Shook his head and wiped the palms of his hands across my shirt like it was a towel, before hobbling over the seats towards the fields. The front of the crowd were scrambling over the chain link fence that walled in where the batters cove where the team normally sits. One of the copters hovered slightly lower from its formation with the group. A young woman, vaguely familiar, tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a bundle of blankets. She said something about watching her baby - I nodded dumbly and took the bundle. I pulled back the blankets and saw a small babies face smiling at me. I looked up to find the woman but she was gone, replaced with the human mud slide descending down the stadium. I looked back at the baby and realized it was actually just a baby doll. The eyes sparkled lifelessly and as I peeled back the blankets I discovered that the rest of the body was a series of smashed glass and broken bottle necks.
Yet, I clung to the bundle for dear life.
Now the first of the mob were over the fence, sprinting for the helicopter, tripping, falling, some grabbing those just ahead of them by the back of their shirt and yanking them back. Then I saw the first person to arrive, some guy in a baseball cap, he reached up to one of the vines and placed it over his neck. Then two more reached him and did the same thing with the other vines.
Then I noticed they weren't vines - they were nooses.
When there were a half dozen or so of the crowd tied off, the copter began to rise slowly, pulling the people up with it, their legs kicked wildly as if trying to tread water, their torsos swayed with the copters ascent, all of them kept their hands in their pockets or tucked behind the small of their back. I could tell even from here that they were smiling these big idiot grins. Everyone goes berserk now, screaming Bloody Blue Halleujeah and fist pumping choruses of "USA-USA-USA". I watch the copter rise higher and higher, the bodies still squirming with life, until the helicopter vanished into the bright sun of a cloudless day. Then a second copter lowered itself and I could see that everyone had lined themselves up along the trajectory of the three bases and home diamond. They were no longer rushing to meet the gallows copters, but stepping slowly along the path, waiting for their turn as each person adorned themselves with the rope neck tie.
This went on for awhile. There were no end to them, the copters swarmed in and lifted back up with their kicking cargo. I was now the only person in the bleechers, the blind albino puppies were still alive, their snouts buried in discarded popcorn containers and rummaging through dropped luggage. I held the baby doll head to my chest. I caught a glimpse of my friend - I couldn't make out his features well but I knew on a gut level it was him - he looked over at me, waved as if he was leaving to go on vacation. He put the noose around his neck, gave a thumbs up, saluted me and was yanked into the air with the rest of them.
I sat there feeling this horrible lonliness come over me, I knew I was all alone now. I felt betrayed by my friend. He should've known better. I drop the bundle. The little white dogs pounce on it, begin fighting over it, snapping, barking, tearing at one another around my feet as I watch my buddy rise into the heavens his feet bucking wildly until he and the gallows copter was just a speck.