Monterey, California and the Death of the Geese
I was awakened this morning by the worst dream that I have ever had and remembered:
I was sitting with my family at a restaurant in Monterey (the city we are visiting at present) when I noticed a young man looking at me from across the restaurant. He looked like a boy I knew from high school and in my dream I named him Brooksie. He was standing in line at a buffet with two other versions of himself, one older and one younger. Each had the same guileless face and freckles. Each had the same red hair. They whispered to each other and glanced in my direction. One of them held a sheaf of papers that had been folded and unfolded many times. He beckoned to me and I went. I walked up to the raised dais on which the buffet sat and he handed me the papers. They were covered with a strange kind of hand-written numerology. “Read it,” he said. He looked at me with his dark brown eyes for a long second and then turned back to the buffet. I walked back to my family’s table. They had all noted my departure and asked insistently to see the papers. Dan Kaplan reached for them, but I withheld them even from him. He looked at me quizzically. Everyone while still trying to read them. The only word on them I had read was Death. Everyone at the table glared at me angrily and finally resumed discussing the menus in irritated tones. I stalked off.
They had no damn right to look at my papers.
I went out a back door of the restaurant. I could see everyone in the restaurant staring at me with disgust through a wall of windows. I turned a corner of the brick building and sat on a bench. I sat there for a long time, staring at the sheaf of papers and reading the word “Death” over and over again. On an adjacent bench I saw the severed head of a goose. It had been torn from its body at the end of its long, black, neck. The feathers at the ragged end dripped blood and swarmed with ants. Nearby, four more geese stood transfixed. They seemed to be staring into the door of the kitchen of the restaurant I had just left and they were swaying slightly. Suddenly, I noticed that their legs and heads were swarming with ants. They seemed to notice this at the same time and began to step haltingly away from their position, making awful choking noises. Ants were chewing mercilessly through their eyes and they started screaming. The ants chewed their bodies and the geese still lived, stumbling around that courtyard leaving behind a trail of blood.
I woke up suddenly and I had suffered none of the usual experiences of the nightmare. My bedclothes were calm, my face was dry, and I had only the lingering sense of horror. I awakened my sister in the next bed. The wake-up call had not yet come through, though it had been ordered for 8am. Just as she got up to shower, the call came and I remained in bed with the horror of my dream. I wondered briefly if the dream was horrific enough to make me a vegetarian.
It was not and is not.
I was sitting with my family at a restaurant in Monterey (the city we are visiting at present) when I noticed a young man looking at me from across the restaurant. He looked like a boy I knew from high school and in my dream I named him Brooksie. He was standing in line at a buffet with two other versions of himself, one older and one younger. Each had the same guileless face and freckles. Each had the same red hair. They whispered to each other and glanced in my direction. One of them held a sheaf of papers that had been folded and unfolded many times. He beckoned to me and I went. I walked up to the raised dais on which the buffet sat and he handed me the papers. They were covered with a strange kind of hand-written numerology. “Read it,” he said. He looked at me with his dark brown eyes for a long second and then turned back to the buffet. I walked back to my family’s table. They had all noted my departure and asked insistently to see the papers. Dan Kaplan reached for them, but I withheld them even from him. He looked at me quizzically. Everyone while still trying to read them. The only word on them I had read was Death. Everyone at the table glared at me angrily and finally resumed discussing the menus in irritated tones. I stalked off.
They had no damn right to look at my papers.
I went out a back door of the restaurant. I could see everyone in the restaurant staring at me with disgust through a wall of windows. I turned a corner of the brick building and sat on a bench. I sat there for a long time, staring at the sheaf of papers and reading the word “Death” over and over again. On an adjacent bench I saw the severed head of a goose. It had been torn from its body at the end of its long, black, neck. The feathers at the ragged end dripped blood and swarmed with ants. Nearby, four more geese stood transfixed. They seemed to be staring into the door of the kitchen of the restaurant I had just left and they were swaying slightly. Suddenly, I noticed that their legs and heads were swarming with ants. They seemed to notice this at the same time and began to step haltingly away from their position, making awful choking noises. Ants were chewing mercilessly through their eyes and they started screaming. The ants chewed their bodies and the geese still lived, stumbling around that courtyard leaving behind a trail of blood.
I woke up suddenly and I had suffered none of the usual experiences of the nightmare. My bedclothes were calm, my face was dry, and I had only the lingering sense of horror. I awakened my sister in the next bed. The wake-up call had not yet come through, though it had been ordered for 8am. Just as she got up to shower, the call came and I remained in bed with the horror of my dream. I wondered briefly if the dream was horrific enough to make me a vegetarian.
It was not and is not.
posted by jw at
10:05 AM
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