Monday, March 17, 2008

DREAM THEATRE Part 5: The End Of It All

This one was particularly disturbing because I've never had a dream this vivid, and so highly involved and finely detailed. It's as if the whole thing came to me fully realized and complete.
It starts off with a friend telling me about a great movie from the 70s, the title of which I'm familiar with but have never seen. I resolve that very day to watch it, so I rent it at the local video store. As I sit in my living room and start the DVD, the dream shifts and I become one of the characters in the movie.
It takes place in a huge compound somewhere off the Eastern seaboard, where the president and his advisors (of which I am one) are in heated talks with another superpower. Success would mean a lasting peace between our nations, and failure, a full scale nuclear war the likes of which would decimate the planet. In the midst of negotiations, the president's youngest child, a boy of 6 or 7, goes missing. He's found wandering around the perimeter of the compound, but as the days go by he manages to wander off farther and farther away from home. He's invariably found at a small town nearby, or at the beach, always by himself, scribbling nonsensical images and words on walls or in the sand. He's finally locked in a room somewhere within the compound, never to escape again.
Then mysteriously, one by one, the president's advisors are systematically murdered, the perpetrator specifically targeting those in the staff in favor of a peaceful resolution to the talks, leaving the war mongers alive. It's then that I find out the horrible unspeakable truth: 1) that the president is the murderer, 2) that he's not acting of his own volition but is, in fact, possessed. 3) That he's not possessed by an evil power, but by God, who has gone mad and wants to bring about the end of the human race by starting nuclear Armageddon. 4) That if the president isn't stopped his power will only increase so that he becomes virtually invincible, and 5) that the president's son was possessed by an angel that was trying to warn us of what was going to happen.
I know that I'll be killed next. By this time the president has become something completely different, something so alien and god-like that to merely look at him would mean your instant death. His thunderous footfalls shake the floors as he pursues me through the compound. I search in vain for a place to hide, and find myself in a basement where my brother and baby nephew are hiding. They're scared and I want to save them but I know they would just slow me down, so I leave them for certain death and escape out a back door. I hear screams and a low growling behind me as I race outside.
I make my way to a neighboring village. As soon as I arrive I notice a boy of about 12 on the street and call out to him. He looks familiar, but for the life of me I can't place how I might know him. I catch his eye and he looks at me in sheer terror, turns and runs away. I chase after him, convinced that he must know something. I finally corner him and he's sobbing, begging for his life. Breathless, I try to calm him down as best I can. I tell him I mean him no harm, I just want to know who he is. He looks me in the eye and says but you know who I am. You forced me to help you kill your friend! It's then that I realize God had also possessed me and who knows how many others to kill people. There's no escape and I know this is the end. That's when the dream ends.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i think there's a movie-in-the-making in there somewhere.