A Dream I Had A Few Days Ago.

I don't usually post my dreams on this site, if only because the lion's share of them are random, seemingly pointless, and quite dull. This one, however, has left an indelible impression on my mind. I tell it in the form of a short story- it has only been imaginatively modified in some places to help with transitions and such. Since imagination is probably the child of our unconscious, I feel comfortable with the choice.

I'm in a corn field. It's either late evening or early morning; the sun hanging low above the horizon doesn't give much of a clue either way. After all, I wasn't here a moment ago- I was asleep, in bed, darkness about me. Now I'm in a corn field.

Perhaps field isn't the right word after all. I'm actually, come to think of it (the cobwebs of recollection brush aside the misnomers with surprising and relative ease) on an old tractor trail next to the corn field. Deep ruts run through the hardened clay, forcing me to change the strike of my foot with each step.

The corn is tall- tall as I remember as a child. Maybe eight feet high, perhaps higher. Measurements like breadth and depth lose focus and meaning in dreams- suffice it to say they were tall, as I determined "tall" to be.

The sun (remember, hanging low) cast shadows over the rutted trailer path and into the dark yet familiar woods beyond. This is an important point, for some reason (my brain screams); I'm not frightened of the woods. They are familiar, yet never once do I turn to them. I am stuck on the path as I walk next to the cornfield and down the rutted path.

So be it. I walk hunched over with my hands shoved deep in my pockets, though it is not cold. I look over my shoulders every now and then and see nothing but the path I have already walked.

Then I look over my shoulder and see a man walking towards me (I'm still walking as well.) He is large, with stunted arms and legs and a squarish head that reminds me of an ogre. He gives me no reason to fear him, but I am instantly filled with apprehension over his presence. Something is not right- even in the dream, this alarm goes off at the sight of the man on the rutted path.

I walk a bit faster and, for a while at least, refuse to look back. Then, after a bit, I turn around and he is closer. Close enough where the muted values of his face begain to gain a bit of detail. Yet his pace has not changed. Had he ran while I wasn't looking, I would have heard his feet hit the rutted path. He had not ran.

I say something to him- something protective and threatening all at the same time. He mumbles something in return but I don't hear it. But I do turn and half walk, half jog towards some unknown destination.

After a while, I turn around, and he is still closer, yet his pace has remained the same. As I said, something is not right here. He is maybe ten to fifteen feet from me know, yet I was moving faster. I tell him go "Go away!" with as much force as I can muster (my voice bounces off the corn) and he responds, "I'm not going to hurt you." His voice is childlike and clumsly, like an oafs. It has an innocence to it that is potentially disarming. I refuse to fall for the trap.

Now I am at a full sprint. Running and running as fast as I can down the rutted path next to the cornfield while the sun hangs low. It is definitely setting, for the shadows on the path are growing longer and longer, now barely touching the beginning of the dark yet familiar woods. I turn around- he is just out of arm's reach when he screams. Loud. Guttural. Piercing. As he screams, he raises his stunted arms and moves them back and forth and closes the gap quickly.

I turn and stop to face him- and scream back. Matching his intensity, I will his body to disappear. He does so, losing dimensionality solely because I chose for it to happen. The best non-dream word to describe it would be smoke- he turned into a fine dark smoke that slowly dissipated into the setting sun.

Then I am alone in the cornfield, for a moment- and then the intensity of the experience pulls me from it and I awake in my bed clad in cold sweat.

3:41 A.M. The dream is gone along with the man, but the memory he instilled, walking there next to the cornfield on the rutted path at the edge of the woods as the sun set will be forever with me.

If you see him tonight, tell him hello.