Day 8 - Dream-catcher

 DREAM-CATCHER

Prompt - Dream-catcher : Write something inspired by a recent dream you had

Where are we?  Why are we here?  How did this happen to us?

I looked out of the window.  The sky was a deep, deep blue, a universal blue, a cloudless azure, throwing down a penetrating light from an unfamiliar sun.  It lit upon a sparkling green sea and radiating silver sands that were blinding to look upon.  To my left I could see the shoreline curve round and tall palms and dense vegetation pushing down towards the beach.  I recognised none of it.

Then there was the room.  It was my bedroom.  Had been my bedroom.  It was the way my bedroom had been until I was eleven.  Bunk beds, matching wardrobe and dressing table, a cupboard for toys and books.  Faded yellow wallpaper, compete with damage repairs from my early years, the navy blue carpet that was the only element I knew from my present.  But that room was in a terraced house, my outlook one of narrow back gardens, sheds, the back doors of the semis in the parallel road, and near perpetually grey skies.  It couldn't be here.

Bewildered, I left the room, through the plain single door that should no longer be there, and moved to my right.  The geography fitted, the timeline held together.  It was my parents' bedroom, as it had been.  The furniture, the wallpaper, the fifties ambience all fitted in with the appearance of what I had to think of as 'my' room.

And there stood my parents.  Younger versions of those my teenage self was familiar with, but with looks as confused, and even more fearful, than that I'd adopted.  Dumbstruck by what they saw, when they saw me all they could do was point me to the view they'd been looking out on.  Same sky and baking heat.  Same sandy beach leading up to the dense greenery beyond.  No hint of a garden or tarmacked road or Mrs Simpson's place at number 33.  But there were people.  In keeping with the climatic conditions they appeared to be African, all men, all clad in little more than loin cloths, probably from the southern half of the continent.  They also appeared to be very angry, chanting en masse an undecipherable, but unmistakably aggressive song of war.  And brandishing a fearsome array of finely sharpened weaponry.  

We looked at each other.  We looked at the vocal group before us.  And we looked around the room, even more bewildered to see that a rack of early nineteenth century muskets had shown up on the wall above a bed that was now shrinking.  To fight or not to fight?  To dream or not to dream?  We would never know.

Footnote : This wasn't a recent dream, I can't recall any from the past few months.  But it was one I had when about thirteen or fourteen, and remains the most vivid of my whole life.  I can still see the white stars on the old red wallpaper of the front bedroom, and the bloodthirst looking assembly on the beach.  I can still recall the fear and total lack of understanding.  Maybe it's as well I can recall no more...