Well, I wrote a column about boring dreams and not long after that my brain started cranking out some real doozies.
Be careful what you ask for! It is possible that my boring dreams were a reflection of my hum-drum waking world. Things have been hectic in my real life, so perhaps crazy dreams equals crazy life— or is that the other way around?
The first of my wilder, recently re-energized dreams was a post-apocalyptic scenario, not a Mad Max desert full of rusted high octane bandits, but still definitely centered around vehicles. This was more of a “shortly after the fall” dream. Buildings and vehicles are all still mostly intact and people are full of paranoia, unsure if the other survivors they meet are potential allies or potential threats.
A group of survivors I had fallen in with were trying to find a big diesel ve-hicle capable of pushing (or smashing) smaller abandoned autos out of the way. There were plenty to choose from, several of them all parked along the emergency lane on a bridge of all things. We chose one of the big wreckers complete with a small crane that you see towing semi tractor trailer rigs.
One of the people I was with got shot by a rival group as we were recovering the wrecker, which sent us into a panic. I was one of the two people tending to our injured friend as the others drove our huge truck in a whiplash-inducing race through a strangely empty city.
That emptiness, the silence of the city which made the roar of the engine seem even louder was my big take away from the dream. However long it had been since the human herd had thinned out, and it wasn’t too long seeing as we were all still dressed in normal clothes and not the hodgepodge combo of sports gear and improvised armor common to most postapocalypse movies, nature had already returned. Things were quiet, the call of birds the most common thing you would hear. Lawns were overgrown, tree branches intruding upon power lines, and deer were sometimes seen ambling down the streets.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the bandits chasing us and my desperate, ineffective attempts to apply direct pressure to my friend’s bloody wound as the giant truck slung back and to, weaving in and out of the abandoned vehicles littering the road.
The world would be a lot quieter without us, I realized.
I woke up shortly after that. It was morning and time to get to work. Later that same day I realized that perhaps my subconscious knew something I didn’t. My truck decided to start having trouble once more with a recurring problem I had thought fixed after the last trip to the mechanic.
The world would be a lot quieter without my truck, but I do need it to get to work. My paycheck would be a lot emptier without it.
