An Explosive Dream

Image @ nipic.com

The split screen in my mind was dark, both figures shadowed except for the places where moonlight poured through windows around them. On the left, a long, lean young man wearing lounge pants, and a t-shirt with graphic art on it, his sleeves pushed up to just below his elbows. He was stretched out on a sofa, legs crossed and moonlight made his white-socked feet a beacon of contrast to the dark in the room. As I studied him, I noticed one hand resting casual and low on his stomach, while the other cradled the phone, a flash of white from his teeth, as the girl he was speaking to said something to make him smile.

On the right the girl he was speaking to sat Indian-style at the foot of her bed. The moonlight caught her nightgown and the tip of one exposed knee as she quietly spoke to the man on the phone. I watched them talk to each other in low, intimate tones and got the sense that their "relationship" was new. The man grew more uncomfortable, fidgeting on the sofa as the woman's voice aroused and enticed him. The woman, sensing his mood change, cut the conversation and told him she was going to bed. When they hung up, his part of the screen vanished and I watched the girl smile to herself, get up and perform her nightly rituals.

She came to lock the front door, which was open, but a screen door was closed over the doorway and she saw the man from the phone, his tall form familiar, approaching her door. His face was covered with a balloon bouquet he carried as he walked across her front porch to the door, and she laughed. She kept the screen, also locked, between them as he stood just outside it and moved the balloons, his face a happy grin in the black night. "Are you going to let me in?" he asked boyishly, a little shy now that he was here and she was so close. "Nope," she said smiling. "It's the middle of the night, you goof. I'm going to bed." The hot look that crossed his face made the now quiet between them hang heavy in the air. They both stood, watching each other and waiting. Finally, he took a deep breath, scrubbed his face with a hand he didn't know what to do with and leaned a little closer to the screen, "Come for a ride with me?" he challenged, appealing to her wild side. "Now?" she asked, breathless that he was close enough to feel his warm breath against her cheek through the screen. "Yeah," he nodded, locking his eyes with hers. She looked to see his motorcycle parked at the end of her short gravel drive and found it impossible to resist. "Okay, I'll be right out," she said in a burst of courage, the words blending into one smooshed sentence that made him chuckle.

She turned and dashed back to her bedroom to slip into jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt. "Hey," he shouted from the door. "Aren't you going to let me in?" "Not a chance," she called back, laughing and pulling on her boots as the excitement built. She grabbed her keys, stuffed them into her jeans pocket, darted out passed him as she locked the door, and raced to stand next to his bike. He followed her, then scooped her into his arms and kissed her deeply before she could squirm away. She gave a soft moan that nearly did him in and he let himself indulge in her lips another moment before forcing himself to pull away. "Get on, woman. Let's go for a ride," he said, mounting the bike like a modern day cowboy. She climbed on behind him and they roared away.

They took an old dirt road that curved around woods and fields near her little house. It was clear that there had been a lot of rain, great clumps of mud and water pooled in places throughout the large field. The night air was cool, so she squeezed close to his warmth and held on tight. He stopped by the edge of a forest, turning to kiss her hard and deep. He cut the engine so that he could pull her even closer but as they kissed there in the night, a roar overhead broke them apart. Together they looked up and could just make out several large, dark planes flying overhead. He tensed, got off the bike to stand and get a better look. It was then that I realized that he was somehow connected to the military and recognized the significance of what they were seeing, even if the girl from the dream had no idea except to be afraid. An explosion rocked the woods in front of them and she took off across the field, running in the direction of her house. The mud was slippery and several times she lost her footing, but she could hear him running behind her. About a hundred yards from her house she fell. She heard helicopters overhead and looked up. They were circling her location like angry buzzards. Suddenly, one of the helicopters swooped to its side where she could just make out the emblem of a blade-like white cross, then it dropped a long cylinder-like object that landed about 30 feet from where she lay. About the time she realized it was a bomb, another fell, this one landing only about five feet from her. She knew she would never get away in time to avoid the blast and she could hear the man screaming her name in the night, his voice laced with panic. He didn't know where she was and she didn't want to call out to him because she knew he'd die with her if she did. There was no way he wouldn't come to her and that just wouldn't work. She curled up into a tight ball there in the dark and oozing mud and waited. It wasn't long before the explosion shook her and woke me.