Dream me is watching a stunt man. He is in a sleek, flashy, red and black sports car. The car is on a dock in the middle of the ocean. Dream me is not a physical presence but is observing the scene like it’s a movie. The man drives the car off the ramp and into the water where a submarine is passing by. There is an explosion and then man’s body can be seen floating in the orange glowing wreckage slowly sinking. For some reason there is green dust in the water as well.
Now the man is sitting in an interview chair for movie stars. He explains that he is from Switzerland and talks about his role in the movie and how he doesn’t die in the scene I just saw. Rather, he grabs a hold of the submarine and rides it from the outside until he is safe.
Now I’m the man and I’m riding the submarine. I don’t know how I held my breath for so long but when the submarine surfaces I realize that the mainland is behind us and there are only a handful very very small islands left before the ocean. It suddenly occurs to me how dangerous it would be to ride on the outside of a submarine in the open ocean and how important it is that I somehow get to one of those small islands. My life is at stake. Then I remember that the tide is going t go out soon and I’ll have a chance to survive…
…my memory of events is a little blurry now but, somehow I end up with a small boy. Despite the fact I was riding a submarine in very deep water the tide goes out and we are standing on a plane of red sand that stretches out to the horizon. When the tide comes back in it will be the ocean. It is dusk and as the sun is setting the entire world around us is becoming incredibly vivid colors. The little boy with me has scruffy black hair and looks down a lot. He is shy. For some reason that has to do with him my plan has changed from making it back to the mainland to making a journey across the ocean.
We begin to walk past the islands. They are around the size of small outdoor theaters in a park. They are made of dusty dark red stone. The stone lies out in layers that form small mounds of steps. The first one is crowded with people. They are all natives to the island which is over populated. They are wearing loincloths and shouting down at one islander who is sitting in a large boat throwing fish up at the other islanders. I feel like me and the boy will not fit in with these people.
The next island is the strangest. It has the same shape but rather than being populated by people it is covered in baby seals. The seals are rainbow colored and very bright. Each seal is only one solid color. Sitting on top of ever seals head is a bird also a single solid color. Every bird is a different color than the seal it is perched on. All the birds and seals sit perfectly still, like ceramic art. Despite the fact they don’t move, I know they are alive.
The final island is just one slab of the red stone and it’s only big enough to fit 4 or so people. One man and three children are already gathered around a tiny camp fire in the center of the island. The sun has set now and the winds are starting to pick up in the darkness. Somehow even though the sand we walk on is a deep red color, made deeper and dark by the lack of sunlight, the winds that blow past and pick up the sands are blue and we are walking through a colorful haze.
It occurs to me the difficulty of trying to cross an ocean. Now that we have passed the islands we are truly in the wilderness. We need to rest and I need to make a campfire for me and the boy. I’m the adult between the two of us and I responsible for the safety of both of us. I rethink the whole idea. Perhaps this isn’t safe at all. When I think about it the only reason we can walk right now is because the tide is out but as soon as the tide comes in we will have to swim and probably drown. I begin to panic and worry a lot. Through the blue haze I see a red sand dune and I realize that if we can find elevated places like that dune we can survive whenever the tide comes in and slowly make our way across the ocean when it goes out.
The boy and I struggle to climb up the dune. At the top is a single barren tree. Even though we didn’t climb that high it’s hard to make out the red plane bellow us through the haze. I look down at the base of the tree and see yellow, three-toed paw prints in the sand leading back down the dune. Then I wake up.
