Black Smoke Rising

A Dream From The Past

     I'm at work. Somehow, the recycling factory catches on fire. I start helping all the line workers outside. I run back inside, and everything is ablaze. I take one last look around to make sure no one is left behind. Since I don't see or hear anyone, I exit the building. All of the workers watch as the factory burns. Dream ends.

I wake up

High School Blues

Dream 3/16/2017

     In high school, I walk to my locker to get the books for my next class. I see that my top locker is open which is weird because I never use my top locker due to the lock that I can never get open. I walk to my next class. I open the door and realize I'm in the wrong class. The room I am standing in is an advanced college English class. Everyone is staring at me. They all yell at me to get out, telling me that I don't belong here, that this class is for smart people. I need to go to the "regular" English classroom.

     I have a homework assignment to take something from the school and refurbish it into something new. A fellow student offers to help me. We grab a metal trashcan and sit on the gym floor. He does all the work. He turns the trashcan into a colorful tree with animals and fruit springing from it.

     I walk out to the student parking lot and my guitar and amp are set up to play. I pick up my guitar and the strings shock my hands when I strum them. As I continue to play, fire shoots from my amp. A guy named Matt walks over and asks to play my guitar. I warn him that something is wrong with it. As he begins to play, fire once again shoots from the amp and smoke starts billowing from the guitar. He puts it down and leaves.

     I start to pack everything up into my Jeep. A fellow student named Tim offers to give me a ride home. He jumps into my Jeep, as do I. I ask him if he has ever driven a Jeep before and warn him that he can't make speedy sharp turns or he could tip the vehicle. I tell him that I know three people who have died from flipping their Jeeps. He drives me home taking a different way than I take. Dream ends.

I wake up.

The Gymnasium Fire

Dream 6-29-14

     Walking through the upstairs hallway of Liberty Christian School, making my way around many of the middle school preteens that occupy that part of the school, I notice something out of place. Smoke. The  smell of smoke begins to fill my senses as if it were trying to drown me. I turn down the hallway on the south end of the school. Black smoke is billowing out of the gymnasium doors. The fire alarm begins to scream above my head. The middle school kids were now stampeding to make it out of the building, much like a Darwinian survival of the fittest. Pushing and shoving. There was no apologies, only a fear inspired action toward the five exit's of the building. 

     Standing there, watching the black smoke fill the hallway, I have a choice to make. I can follow the lead of the students, making their way outside to safety or I can check the three classrooms in front of me in which I saw no one exit. What if someone were trapped. Fear was telling me to get out while I still can, but courage had another message. 

     I started making my way down the south end hallway. It was now full of smoke. The only way to get through it was to hunch over and try to get under it. It's a struggle to breathe still. I make it to the first classroom. Empty. I struggle down the hall a bit to the second, open the door and find it empty. I began to wonder if this was the right choice, if it was just a waste of time. It wasn't a good time in my life to be wasting time, I didn't have time. I only had a matter of minutes until the fire from the gymnasium, poked it's ugly head into the place which I was standing. This time it could be fatal. I finally make it to the last classroom. It's empty, just like the first two. 

     I have to get out. The way I came is out the question but the stairs in front of me which lead to the first floor have been demolished. All that remains there is the once landing of the stairs. I have to make a jump for the landing, it may be a cruel choice, but it's the only one. I jump. Crashing into the tiled landing, I forget about the pain and now focus on the jump to the first floor which is even higher. Strangely, there are doors on the landing now. Opening them up to reveal the first floor, I notice many people standing around nonchalant as if the fire and the stampeding children was all in my imagination. But it wasn't. I can still see the puffy black smoke taking over the upstairs hallway. Suddenly an idea comes to me. I take off my long sleeved shirt. I carefully make my way around the open door to the first floor. Now standing about twelve or thirteen feet above it. I bend down. I take one sleeve of my shirt and jam it into the door as it closes. 

     Full of high anxiety, I cautiously shimmy down the shirt. I know that it won't get me all the way to the floor but it will get me close enough so I don't break my leg on the jump. The people notice me now but they don't try to help (Typical dream people and probably typical real life people as well, if you think about it.) Funny enough, before I get to the end of my shirt, I touch the ground with my feet (As if my shirt were thirteen feet long from one sleeve to the other.) Now to safety, I decide not to leave the building. From what I hear the fire has largely calmed down and it's not unsafe to roam the halls, looking at the damage it caused. So I do. 

     Now near the front door of the school, surveying the fire's art work, my mom rushes in. She is frantic. She tells me how the teachers didn't know where I was and how scared she was about it. She didn't know if I had met the grim reaper or not. I assure her that her eyes are not playing tricks on her and I am fine. 

     We make our way to the car and drive off, out of sight. Dream ends.

I wake up.