Landscape ...

I dreamt of a nightmare landscape, the sky blotted out by a dark stain that hung low above the land, the desert like a dried up shore at low tide.  The small threads of green that the baked land usually held with tentative grasping fingers were withered and colourless.  The wind no longer blew and I couldn’t feel the air that I breathed.

Wandering in the desert I saw many people, each shuffling slowly and aimlessly, avoiding one another, each an island in the sea of sand.  I could see some had old wounds and dried blood on their bodies or faces and their eyes were dull and haunted.  Many talked to themselves and I knew this was a muttered lamentation of their lost lives and regrets of things not done and words not spoken.

At the same time I saw people I knew who were still alive; M_ and B_; Big Pete; M_; Ruben and the rest of the crew.  I saw F_ and Jaimie walking alone, clinging to each other, safe in each other’s embrace, and seeing that comforted me.

The most troubling thing to me was that despite being able to see the air wavering from the heat that radiated up from the ground, I felt so very cold.

•

When I arose in the morning I shaved and showered and dressed while F_ and Jaimie slept in; the bar-b-que the night before no doubt having worn them out.  When I opened F_’s bedroom door I was at first startled to see he wasn’t in his bed, but settled quickly when I realized where he must be.  Gently and silently I opened Jaimie’s bedroom door and found them both alseep, snuggled tight together under the sheet, their noses almost touching.  It was an odd feeling that washed through me; another breed of man would roust and separate them, but I remembered my dream and seeing them together, feeling gratitude that they had each other in this hard world.  Perhaps they too had ominous dreams and sought each other out for comfort.  Who was I to judge?

The more I learned of the world the less it seemed I knew.

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