“Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real?“
There were recurring dreams in childhood. One, I’m in my father’s Dodge pickup—a rust bucket green. He arrived to pick my older brother and me up for school. He drove us for a few years until I was in the third grade, when a janitor reported to the principal that he dropped me off too early. Anyway, I’m in the pickup and my brother’s forgotten something inside the house. My father, frustrated, returns into the house with him. Everything’s fine at first until the truck starts to move on its own with me still inside. I call for help, but even I can’t hear the screams. The truck just rolls and rolls and rolls. I never see it to the end. I always woke before I got to the intersecting street.
The other dream followed me into adulthood. Not so much a recurring dream, though. It’s more of a type of dream. And it’s always starts off the same way. I’m tired and it’s time for bed. Only, I’ve forgotten that I’m already asleep in bed. I stop doing whatever it was that kept me preoccupied, and head for my bedroom. As I open the door, I can’t ignore the sense of darkness before me. The room is dark as rooms are at night. Only this darkness is blinding. I take a step forward and I fall. Only I’m jolted back into a reality that I cannot remember slipping from.
In the far corners of my mind, there lies a machine. The purpose of the machine is deep-seeded in my religious upbringing. Points in my life, before I left go of the fantasy and embraced the natural, I fancied myself a savior. Or tailored myself towards priesthood. There is darkness within this machine. I can hear the voices of gods unknown beckoning me forward. It is the pickup trucking rolling off the hill. It’s me falling forever into the depths of darkness.
Chapin City Blues 