Zombie Nightmare

I've been dealing with a rough situation the last few weeks. I'm not so good with relationships, especially when one hits a rough patch. I get scared, I hide, I shut down, I freak out, I have nightmares. It isn't a pretty sight. I did art therapy almost all day yesterday and quickly figured out what was going on (which is in itself a miracle) but am still having a hard time with being angry, figuring out how to say how I feel, and still managing to be a good, responsible person while at the same time letting someone know that they are acting like an asshole and it has to stop.

So last night, having worked through some things in therapy (and crying all morning), I had this nightmare:

The world had been taken over by zombies. There were pockets of non-zombie humans living in parts of cities, shuffled to and fro from work by guards and soldiers. I went to work in an old brick building downtown with lots of other people and I got an odd feeling about one of my friends' husbands. I avoided him and let someone know that I suspected he'd been bitten and was coming down with the virus. Someone asked me why and I shook my head. "I just have a feeling about him."

Then, zombies battered in our big wooden office doors. One of them was Stu. I started screaming and crying, hiding away until he left. I crawled out and saw a woman standing in front of another zombie. I recognized him as her late husband. She flew into his arms and he dragged her away. "She's a romantic," said a guard. "She'd rather die than live without him."

I was instantly plagued with guilt at the thought of living without Stu. I started weeping and someone started to play piano. I sat down and played the theme from "Beauty & The Beast" and pleaded with Stu to come back. I wanted to prove that I couldn't live without him either. But he never came.

The guards got angry with us for making so much noise, but it was time to leave so they shuffled us into an elevator so we could go down to the parking lot and carpool home. I was supposed to ride with a friend but I got caught up watching three people dressed as demons tiptoe into the building and when I got to the parking lot I realized my friends had left. I desperately searched for a ride and tried to get into a car with a mother, father, and child. I grabbed the man's arm and saw that in the future, he would sell both his wife and child to the zombies.

I did manage to catch a ride with a red-headed CIU student and we went into the forest to where some of us had built a hidden town. There were cobblestone streets and little houses up a hill to where I lived in a big apartment complex. The mayor was giving a speech, explaining that the new theme park was almost complete. I had a bad feeling about it, like he was plotting something evil but I couldn't put the pieces together.

It was nighttime, and the theme park workers were wandering around dressed as zombie clowns. People were freaking out so the workers had to show them their eyes so that people would realize they weren't actual zombies.

I ran into the mayor's son and saw that he was wearing my favorite hoodie. He had also stolen one of my shirts. I got them back from him and we started walking. He began telling me that he was transitioning (transgender) and that his father was furious at him. I invited him up to my apartment to look through my clothes.

We got to my apartment and I started cooking spaghetti for dinner. I showed him both closets. And then we stared out the window, down the hill at the little town, wondering what his father was planning.

Then I woke up.

I Wonder

I will always wonder

If you would have lived

If I had asked

and believed.

-

I didn't have any hope that morning. I just watched him go. And later I wondered, "Why didn't I ask? Why didn't I believe? Why didn't I have faith?"

The agony of wondering why my faith/hope/love wasn't strong enough to save him haunts me.

It gnaws at me.

And I don't know how to answer it.

Second Best

A few nights ago I dreamed this rather unsettling (yet enlightening) dream:

My siblings and I were in a bedroom in our first log cabin in Cosby, TN. We were standing around a full size bed with a quilt bedspread. The roof was low and the room cramped. My mother appeared and all of us panicked.

She was different.

She had black holes in place of eyes. She couldn't see, but she could hear like it was her superpower. We were all afraid of what would happen if she caught us so one by one we sneaked around her and ran downstairs to get out of the house and away from her.

I realized I didn't have any pants on and knew I couldn't go back upstairs. I grabbed a folded set (a pair I still can't find in real life) and raced out the door. We got on horseback and road away down the street, away from our screaming mother.

We decided to live at a mall/flea market because there were so many people there that our mother couldn't possibly zone in on us. We stayed there long enough for my sister to make a friend (his name started with a J). Then we realized that there were cameras everywhere, and while my mother couldn't see us, someone would tell her where we were.

We raced out to the parking lot and stopped when my sister and I realized we were the only ones. "What happened to Ethan and Andrew?" I panted. Somehow, we discovered that my sister's "friend" was a kidnapper. We found his car and there were my brothers, wrapped in dark plastic sheets and tied with ropes.

Unfortunately, a crowd of people were running toward us and we knew we were out of time. And then Castiel (yes, Castiel from Supernatural) appeared. He got into the driver's seat and we hid in the backseat with our brothers as Cas drove our getaway car.

Later, Cas took us to a small, beautiful farm in the middle of nowhere. My friends were there - Kyle, Patti, William, Davey, Shane. We were all hanging out in an above-ground pavilion (I have no idea, my brain likes to imagine itself up high) when I noticed that everyone (excluding William) was surrounding my sister, talking to her, flirting with her, wrestling, etc.

I watched as they all laughed about which guy should marry her, and they said, "Well we can't all marry her - someone has to marry Kate!" and then they went, "Hahaha! Ew..." I stomped toward them and screamed, "WHY AM I ALWAYS SECOND BEST?!" and ran away. I found William (who was loitering by himself on the staircase down) and told him about the dream...I thought I was awake.

Later, we were at my godparents' house and there were a man and woman who said they would help us get away from our mom.

I found out that they were actually in contact with her and were going to hand us over. I flew into a rage that we had been betrayed and that I could trust no one. I grabbed the redheaded woman by the hair and knocked her against the table, twice, until she blacked out.

And then we ran.