Dream #2
by HP Illingworth
Mom tells me of her boyfriend. How he likes to keep an album of pictures on horses. How he’s sweet and kind and caring.
But I dream within the dream that the world will come to end… Evey little thing that runs on electricity burns out, rendering the planet quiet, lifeless.
Dad drags me to a junkyard. We work quickly, grinning and laughing like fools with nothing better to do. It just seems like every other day.
From the junkyard, we move to a garage, stuffed with Mom’s old junk. Computer parts. Papers. Poems. Boxes upon boxes. Dad grins and puts on his cap, shutting the garage door into the dream.
Next to the garage of Mother, there’s a small seafood restaurant. It didn’t serve seafood. It was painted black with various shrimp and fish around its door. The owner smiles as he bring me a plate of nothing, Dad’s grin settling on his own plate.
I had nothing, but Dad was still smiling, and that’s all I needed.
Darkness warps around me with bleeding veins. A man I don’t know calls out to me. Behind him is a huge metal machine. HUGE. It glistens dangerously in the sunlight.
“You’re gonna die too, young lady.” He flashes his jagged teeth.
Waking from darkness, scared of the man and his metal monster, I look out the window from my second story bedroom into a landscape similar to the red clay and dry grass of Nashville. Dad’s waiting outside.
Outside. The sun pounds me with such intensity. All around me, holes in the earth tell a story of abuse.
The earth is dead. The metal monster is still attacking it.
Dad doesn’t notice. He grins at me as I take in the earth.
Very few people. Very few left. The earth is dead, and I dreamt about it.
Dad takes me back to the junkyard. Huge gashes make their way through the once neatly trashed land. They crawl and twist and cry to me, “Run now, run now, RUN!” as the metal monster can be heard miles away, eating the land with great satisfaction.
Mom is dead. Dad can’t hear the ripping of the metal monster, but he does notice the creeping quietness of the land. We go to Mom’s garage.
Inside, the garage is just as torn apart. Papers and memories fly from their boxes and shelves as Mike tells me what I already know. I pick up a photo album. Inside are pictures of horses.
Outside. Dad slams the garage shut. Shuts away Mike. Shuts away the memories. Mom’s gone.
“Run… run… run…” the land is whispering to me. Metal monster presses closer. Dad doesn’t notice. Just tells me we’re on our own.
We head home. Home. Torn apart from the inside out. Plastic bags litter the inside. Dad doesn’t notice.
I tell him my dream. We’re all going to die. I tell him that the land is speaking, but he pays me no mind.
Metal monster and man are found. Dad pays them no mind. The man flashes me the same jagged teeth, the monster eating away at the earth, his razor blade of a mouth glinting in the light of such an intense sun.
“RUN!” the earth SCREAMS as the metal monster rips into it, rips into veins of bark, life seeping away.
But it’s too late. Metal monster eats my father. He doesn’t notice.
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