A short dream and a long dream - about life

The short dream

 

In this dream, I am doing the ward round in West Wing. There is a small African boy (?Nigerian? Not sure) in Bed 18 and he is surrounded by crying relatives. I am standing next to bed 10 and wondering if I should go over there, but the head nurse manages to discourage me. I continue with the ward round and by the time I get to bed 12, the wailing becomes louder and louder. I look over and see the child is dying. 

Then I realise that the end of the world is here, and it will end with the death of that child. Then I wake up.

The long dream

 

In this dream I am with a group of friends and one of them is my boyfriend – a man that I have never seen before. We are riding motorbikes around East Timor and stopping randomly in villages, those dusty places where there is little more than a handful of thatched huts and children playing with animals in the dirt.

In one such non-descript village we could see the ocean, not too far away. The road was windy and descended from the village to the ocean. Some villagers called things out to us but we could not understand them. As we neared the ocean, it was clear what the warning was – the water came very close to the road and as the waves washed up, actually over the road.

I can’t remember how many motorbikes we had but we were the last ones through. There was a small downhill just before the water started, so it felt like we ran into the water at full speed. It was surprisingly cold as it washed over us, and soon we could see nothing at all. The road fell away and we were actually glidng through the water. For a moment it was almost like we were driving underwater and somehow the motorbike could part water, but in a split second we had been washed away. I was far far out in the ocean, and I could not see anyone.

I gulped down several mouthfuls of salty seawater and started to panic. My legs stayed faithful to me and I managed to paddle out to the shore again. There I saw my boyfriend standing under a coconut tree, staring into the distance. None of the others were there. They had gotten through and we were the only ones left, now with no means of transport.

We walked back up the hill to the village, struggling in the suddenly stifling air. We saw a shop which had a Chinese sign “closed” on it. I saw through the grates that there were people inside, but they did not answer our calls. We walked around and all the people seemed to have disappeared. Finally we found a man running a fruit stall, but something immediately disturbed me about him. I had a quick flashback to another scene, where all of us together had escaped some baddies – and that man was him. I pulled urgently at my boyfriend’s sleeve, but he was chitchatting in a friendly way with the fruit man.

The sense of panic rose in me, not dissimilar to when I was in the water but with a far greater urgency. I could not believe my eyes as the fruit man suddenly stood up, gripped my boyfriend in a choke-hold and dragged him away. I chased after them but they were gone.

The next scene cuts to me living alone in a thatched hut, not far from the ocean where we had almost drowned. I walk up the road, past the village, to a rudimentary building which is the local prison. I wonder what our crime is as I pass food silently to my boyfriend. I wonder how long I have been in this village already, getting up, eating and visiting my boyfriend in jail.

What is the purpose of life? I think, and wake up.