I sat in a living room conversing with two characters, teenage boys, from books I have read but cannot recall.
"Do you remember the flood?" said one to the other.
"Yes, I remember it well."
*******
I walked in the streets of my neighborhood, and though the day was clear, foamy brown stormwater spurted from the piercings in the manhole covers, rattled them in their sockets and escaped in sheets of spray from the edges.
*******
I stood in my sunny second-floor bedroom and looked down from the curtained front windows at a dozen small children playing in the street. The stormwater rolled down the street in a wave, flowed around the children's tricycle wheels and ankles. They began to run, and a larger wave rolled after them, sweeping them away. A mother ran from the house next door towards her own struggling little girl.
I bent down and picked up Mary Jane and cradled her in my arms and turned her face toward the window. "Look, Mary Jane," I told her firmly. "The water is taking all the children away." Her face contorted in fear and she wept. I carried her away from the window and lied, "They'll all be okay."
Two teenage boys...flood...Many Waters by L'Engle? It would be pretty cool if your subconscious was citing that book.
The rest of it reminds me why I hated pregnancy dreams...always so vivid, surreal, and disturbing.
Posted by: Kate | 08 February 2010 at 04:48 PM
It would be even spookier, as I have never read that book (though I am an admirer of M. L'E.)
Posted by: bearing | 08 February 2010 at 07:30 PM