Saturday, Jun. 04, 2005 - 23:46

Hello gentle Dreamer.

The first memory I have from this dream is being on a busy inner-city street. A female friend (identity now forgotten) was standing along side of me. It was a bright and sunny day.

I spied a guy in his early forties with a balding head, yet he had long, greasy, thinning hair growing from the back and sides that hung down to his shoulders. He was wearing a white T-shirt with some kind of cheesy slogan printed on it, and a pair of ill-fitting, off-white coloured shorts and a pair of thongs on his feet. In his hand he carried something that looked like either an oversized credit card or possibly a leaflet, like some kind of advertising junk mail.

He was on the other side of the street, opposite and somewhat diagonal to where we stood. He slyly slid up beside a car that was parallel parked by the pavement, in front of some shops. Using the oversized credit card-thing, he slipped it into the gap of the driver’s side door and proceeded to work the lock, as if he were about to boost the car.

In the dream, I recalled seeing the guy the previous day attempting to do precisely the same thing. I called out: “Hey! What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

My voice startled him and he ran off, losing himself (as my friend and I pursued him) in the crowds.

A few moments later we bumped into some police officers. I seemed to know them and was talking to them about this guy. One of the cops then told me that they’d found him and so led me a short distance to an alleyway where – according to the cop – they’d just found his body.

“He got caught in a shredder,” the cop was telling me as we arrived at the scene where the body lay.

I looked at the mangled body; his clothes were ripped to pieces, his skin was ash grey – what remained of it – and terrible deep wounds scarred one side of his body. The skin had been partially ripped off and/or gouged down to the bone. It was a sickening sight, and my friend and I had to look a way, feeling somewhat queasy.

I felt tremendous pity for the dead guy who – despite having attempted to steal a car – hadn’t deserved this kind of fate. Somehow I knew he was a junkie and had been attempting to break into the car so as to feed his habit.

My female friend, I noticed, was now pushing a baby stroller, with a very young, blonde haired toddler in it. Together we moved a way from the awful scene. At this point, one of the cops decided to join us. I realised that this police officer was Simon.

It seemed peculiar to me that he was with us and it made me feel very anxious, but there seemed no choice. The four of us had to go somewhere that was quite important. We walked for a short distance until we came to an embankment that overlooked a set of railway tracks.

We had to cross to the other side to reach our destination. So we cautiously went down the slope of the embankment until we came to a very narrow footbridge that crossed the train tracks. Strangely, this bridge was only a foot or two above the tracks (so am not quite sure how a train could use the tracks without colliding with the bridge).

As soon as we stepped onto the bridge, I saw a train round the bend further up the track. The girl with the baby stroller and Simon both indicated we ought to turn back and wait for it to pass. But I insisted that we move ahead and assured them that there was time to cross the bridge.

We moved onto the bridge itself. About half way across I realised my mistake; there was no way were we going to be able to cross in time. We were going to get caught half way across and be run down by the speeding train. I felt my stomach churn with dread and terror, and fretted over the safety of my female friend and the infant in the stroller.

Each step wee took on the narrow foot bridge seemed to take an eternity. It was almost as if the bridge had some kind of adhesive surface that made taking a step painfully slow and difficult. Yet the train moved with alarming speed. I felt my heart beat frantically mid-way in my throat as it raced toward us.

Somehow, though, we made it to the other side of the bridge before the train reached our location. However, that side of the embankment was very narrow and jutted out towards the railway lines and there was no apparent means of climbing up – it was just too steep. So we were stuck there on the edge of the embankment, with the train approaching, and it seemed impossible that we wouldn’t be sideswiped as it passed…

I remember Simon staring at me in a peculiar fashion. He said nothing as he suddenly reached for me in an effort to throw me backwards, onto the track… I fell towards the tracks, the thunderous drumming of the train ringing in my ears, at which point I woke up…

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