I MUST BE DREAMING

Last night, I experienced a shooting in my sleep.

I was in a diner, right smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Dirt and small patches of dying, overgrown grass scattered all around it. The restaurant was modestly built with horizontal wooden paneling, dried out from time and exposure to the sun.

There was an overcast on this particularly late afternoon. I saw people here and there, sitting inside and dining, windows wide with the eaves of the roof hanging low. There was nothing around us but what I can only recall in my head with one word: FARM.

Out of nowhere, gunshots rang in my head. I grew dizzy with fear and a rush of adrenaline as screams echoed throughout the restaurant. I didn't know what I was doing there to begin with. So says the dreamer.

A few of us were lying down on the porch floor outside of the diner, silently praying that the shooter wouldn't hear us. There was nothing to hide behind to conceal any efforts of an escape. A couple more gunshots interrupted the remaining patrons' cries. Nothing came after but the whistle of the light wind picking up around the place.

Dead. They were dead. I didn't see it, but I felt the abrupt silence slice down from the top of my head to the pit of my stomach. Holy fuck. Holy shit fuck. I faced away, hearing whispers of the people hiding next to me, covering their heads and muffling their sobs. Without any warning, the murmurs stopped.

My heart began to pound harder when I realized that the porch was splattered with blood. To my horror, everyone was gone. Limp bodies leaning against the wall of the building, some facing down in the pool of their own deaths while others had been shot down during their attempts to flee. I immediately grew sick to my stomach, inhaling the overwhelming stench of copper.

The door was propped open by one of the shooters' foot as the other man walked towards me. Play dead. That was about the stupidest thing I could have done at that moment, after they've seen me watching them. But I did it anyway. As he continued down the short porch walkway, his footsteps echoing through the hallow flooring with a thump, thump, thump, I felt my heart slowing to match the beat of his stroll. I stayed in my position, lying belly down with my head rested on an arm, and played dead.

He stood over me for a moment. I couldn't exactly see what he was doing or looking at while I tried not to choke on the blood soaking onto my arm and almost reaching my face. It grew silent again. I slowly turned my head to catch him in my peripherals, but he was gone. They both were gone. I caught a glimpse of the door slamming shut as I listened in on their conversation from inside the diner. I slowly crawled across the porch and down the steps, finally touching my hands on the dirt.

I eventually stood up from my crawl and marched directly to a dated van, parked on a small asphalt patch about fifty yards away from the restaurant. As I approached the vehicle, I heard a faint song playing through the static of a radio. Without any hesitation, I walked around the front of the van, pulled the passenger door open, plopped onto the seat, and closed it as hard as I could. In the driver seat was a former co-worker of mine, Jennifer Plunkett.

"Someone's coming," she speaks with a slow drawl, unamused by one of the shooters charging towards us while yelling something inaudible.

"Kill him," I commanded her. She sighed and started up the car, putting it into gear.

All I can remember is that we hit him head-on, his body lifted up onto the front of the van moments before the van smashed into an abandoned truck. She backed up and accelerated forward again, crushing the man's body over and over again. Peering over the hood of the van, I began to lose sight of a body and more of what I thought to be mangled flesh and blood.

"Thanks," I exhaled angrily.

"Should we--"

I am no longer sitting next to Jennifer. Instead, I found myself on top of another van, painted glossy like a bright, red fire truck. It drove through the clean and narrow streets of a town at a friendly 20 miles per hour. The van became a truck as I fell onto the bed and peered through to the front cabin to identify the driver and passenger. My friend, Alexi, and her sister Alyssa turned their heads back and waved at me.

I sat back and was caught off guard by the buildings looming over me.  The tops of each building bent downward, as though they were alive and inquisitively taking a closer look at me, a stowaway passenger on this fine red van-turned-truck. I heard honks and horns bellowing around me, all not in unison. Clown town, I thought to myself.

We arrived at a movie theater, where Alexi and Alyssa tell me that they want to see a movie that I've already watched. They pull me in and sit closer to the front of the packed theater. I felt a little hand grab mine and I looked down to see my youngest brother, Lewis. In reality, he's thirteen with a croaking voice from the beginning stages of puberty. In my dream, he was timid and only five years old all over again. I picked him up and carried him along through the aisles sitting down next to the girls, who were lost in conversation amongst themselves.

The film was already playing. I think it was a romantic comedy. Lewis tugged lightly on my shirt sleeve and whispered to me. "Can we see another movie?"

"Sure," I leaned towards the girls and told them that I would be right back. I walked up the aisle with Lewis, and we snuck into a theater playing Tom and Jerry instead.

I woke up and reached for my phone, hidden in between the legs of an oversized stuff teddy bear that I have on the corner of my bed. The time was 5:39 A.M. My candle flickered quietly on my desk.