Holidays are never long enough. Just as I was getting comfortable in my escape I have to come back. I'd love nothing more than to be back on Case Inlet drinking a bloody mary, watching a storm come barreling in, while I steam up some fresh clams for a nice pasta medley. And the fire, oh the fire. With flames rising five feet into the air causing every raindrop to evaporate as soon as it touches down. I'll be back there soon enough...
Now that I'm back in Seattle it's crunch time. I have a lot of things to get worked out before the end of the month. Packing and cleaning and packing and cleaning and vomiting uncontrolably because the whole process makes me sick. I'm starting to think that I may need to have a yard sale to help get rid of stuff. Either that or I'll just become one of those obsessive compulsive craigslister's who spends every waking moment posting ads. Hopefully I'll be able to downsize my life though and once it's all said and done I'll be the happiest boy in all the land. Hopefully...I don't think that I shared with you all the dream that I had last week. It all began in Bothel, well it might of been Mill Creek but somewhere over there. I don't remember what I was doing there but it was nothing of great importance. Suddenly there was a flash and everything went white.
As my vision returned I came to notice that my surroundings had changed. There were huddles of people around me all looking around in confusion. There were two buildings that were probably once homes, but had be left to rot long ago. We were all in the middle of what appeared to be a large forest. There was no food or water and everyone was starting to panic. A good friend of mine, PMR, was there and he rallied a couple of other guys to go off in search of food with him. I was with the remaining people and hysteria was very much a reality. The few children there were huddled beneath a group of crying women, none of them the parents. A group of men were discussing how best to defend our position from whatever inhabited the surrounding foliage. No one was looking for water.
I stepped up and attempted to organize an effort to find water. After reassuring everyone that we were going to be fine I separated them all into small groups to search the immediate area in hopes of finding a river or lake.
As they departed I kept two of the groups behind to help set up a camp of sorts. We were able to find two large econoline vans that had the keys in the ignition. After moving them to a clearing on the south side of the houses we then decided to investigate inside. I was with a woman who started asking me a lot of questions. Finally I couldn't take anymore and asked her why she thought that I knew more than any one else. She paused for a long time and then told me that before she ended up here she was in southern California and that a bright flash occurred and suddenly she was there with the rest of us. I knew that I had moved through time/space but for some reason I never thought that everyone else had as well. She forced me to swear that I wouldn't tell anyone where she was from, which I did, but was never sure as to why.
Around this time the first group of people came back from searching for water. They had found a small spring about 400 yards away and one of the men, I assume he was an engineer, began drafting a plan for an aqueduct. They were also able to acquire a variety of tools they found in the woods, a couple of hatchets, a sledge hammer, etc., and began getting to work on building the water system and starting a fire. This was the first time that I really looked around at what was around us.
I could see a body of water to the west and two large hills, one north and one south. On the southern hill there was a building and upon further study I determined it was the Pacific Medical Center. Mirrored on the opposite hill was another building that I then deduced to be Harbor View Hospital. We were in Seattle! but there were no other signs of civilization. No sky scrappers. No roads. Nothing but forest. I was in a trance trying to process it all when an old friend from high school showed up and told me that she had to get to her studio on Lucile if she was going to be able to help us. I asked where on Lucile and she simply replied, "there's only one place on Lucile. None of this is like you remember it." I gave her keys to one of the vans and sent her off with a couple of men armed with a hatchet.
PMR returned from his expedition dragging behind him a good sized black bear while the men who accompanied him had another tied up on a stick they had resting on their shoulders. Many of the people immediately became horrified that we would eat bear. The screams of horror echoed between the hills. In order to subdue the situation I had the men but the bears into the other van. I then went out to address the concern about eating bear.
On my way I started to tell PMR about the women transported from So Cal, but when I was just about to tell him, she spontaneously appeared before me and said, "I really hope you weren't about to tell him anything about me, for your sake." I quickly back tracked and explained I was trying to get an idea of where he came from and that it had nothing to do with her.
I reached the crowd to find half of the people were more than willing to consume the ursine meat. However everyone else was very much against it and demanded an alternative. I suggested that they break into groups and start scavenging the area. One group to go up the hills looking for berries and other fruits. One group to go towards the water in hopes of fishing or finding shellfish along the shore. As they disembarked I began to work on the bears. We started by removing the seats from the van. This was the most vivid memory I have. The seats were four deep in the van and held in place by elaborate clamps that required two people in order to unlatch them. It took us a very long time to remove all the seats and place them in a semi circle behind the van.
I then moved the bears into the middle of the van and position myself above the larger of the two. A man handed me a knife and as I was about to slice into the flesh behind the neck in order to begin skinning the animal I awoke. I had no idea where I was. I laid in my bed for 5 minutes before I realized that I was back at home. I spend the rest of the day wish I was back in the dream...
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