(From a dream. Sorry if the size of the post annoys. Just scroll on down.)
I was standing in a large grove of oak trees. It was sunny and warm. The wind was blowing faintly. The grass was bright green and lush. It seemed to be spring.
Through the trees a crowd of people emerged and walked toward where I was standing. The people were all smiling and laughing. They seemed to be in very good spirits.
Amongst them was a procession of young girls each wearing white dresses and adorned with a crown of wild flowers and each carrying a bouquet.
I was swept up into the crowd. I followed them as they entered a large building, made of wood, and topped with a dome. The people sat down in long benches facing a man who stood waiting. I sat down amongst them.
The man began to speak and I realized that this was some sort of religious gathering, though not one that I recognized. The man spoke to the crowd though I do not remember what it was that he said.
My focus was elsewhere as everyone in the crowd, besides the young girls who sat in the front row, wore dark clothing. However, there was a woman sitting on a bench behind the man that was speaking. She seemed powerful, important, she wore a bright golden dress and she was staring straight at me.
I began to feel nervous, even afraid. I felt like I did not belong there and wanted to leave. As soon as I determined to stand and flee the woman in the golden dress stood up and put a hand on the shoulder of the man who was speaking.
She then stepped forward and said, “There is among us a stranger.” And she pointed at me. Everyone immediately looked right at me.
There was a whispered exchange between the woman and the man who had spoken and then the man told everyone to leave the room. I was told to stay.
Everyone left the room until I stood alone facing the woman in the golden dress. I can not remember if she spoke to me again but I had a strong feeling that something very important was about to happen.
I began to feel strange. The light in the room got brighter and my vision blurred. I began to hear a strange sound like a swarm of bees in distant gale winds.
The woman seemed to get closer to me and her eyes seemed to bore into me yet she did not move. The noise got louder and suddenly the walls of the building began to break apart, and the benches around me and the floor errupted. All around me the broken peices swarmed in a deafening wind. And somehow I knew that this all had a name. A name which I gave it as I grasped to understand it. The name was Baptism Machine and it terrified me.
Then it was as if the light, and the swirling objects and the noise became so great that they canceled everything out and became silence. I lost all sense of myself and felt no sensations. I did not know who I was or what I was, where or when. It was like slipping into oblivion.
Then I felt the sensation of movement. Like spinning. And then I saw light. The light was spinning. And there were shadows across the light. Shapes. The shapes were branches and leaves. The light was the sun. I saw the blue of the sky. I remembered what these things were.
I looked down to see what else was around me. Then I realized there was a me. I existed. I was in this place.
I looked around and saw a house. It was my house. I had lived there. I grew up there. This was my back yard. The tree above me was the mulberry tree. I knew all this.
I wanted to go to the house but I could not move. I had no body. I could perceive everything around me but I had no physical presense. I focused on the back door to the house and suddenly there was a tremendous rushing sound and I was there. Then I wanted to be inside and I rushed through the door, I could actually feel myself passing through it. Then I was inside the living room. The family cat was there. She saw me and meowed. I was delighted that she could see me.
I moved on. Was anyone here? I went to the front door of the house. I wanted to go through the door. Suddenly I had a body again. I reached out with my hand and turned the door knob. I went outside. My father was standing in the front yard. He had been waiting for me.
I asked him what was happening. He said, “You need to learn something.”
I asked him what was it that I needed to learn. He would not say. I began to feel angry with him. I did not understand why this was happening or why he would not tell me. I shouted at him. Then I ran from him down the street. As I began to run he yelled out to me, his voice sounded frightened but I could not hear what he said.
I ran until I came to an intersection. I could either turn left towards the west or right towards the east. I felt that this choice was extremely important though I could not understand why. I felt the entire experience had brought me to this point.
I turned left.
Before me the sky instantly turned black and a funnel cloud struck the earth and began to tear it apart. The power and fury was beyond anything I could have imagined. I knew that I had chosen wrong. I knew that the force before me was malice, hatred, death. It came for me obliterating everything before it. I ran but it was to late. I was swept up into it. Fear and the cacaphony.
And the noise began to fade. Light before me began to focus. The wind of the machine began to die. The wooden peices of the building fell to the ground. And I stood there again before the woman in the golden dress.
She smiled at me and her eyes were filled with acceptance and love.