I Had SUCH a Strange Dream Last Night

In our relationship, it is THGGM who has the vivid movie-like dreams.

I've said it before, and it's my blog so I will say it again because I want to, I tend to dream things like I open the cupboard and notice we are out of cat food. Or, I am looking for a bathroom but cannot find one. Simple boring dreams like that are my night time mainstay.

But last night. Boy Howdy. What a dream I had.

It began with me setting up for a funeral, something I used to do a lot more of. No one had an idea how many would be attending, so I had to get extra chairs out of storage and line them up. In my head I had an idea that the funeral would be large.

The deceased was a woman in her fifties, who I haven't seen in over thirty years. She was my oldest sister's age, or maybe older, and was an extremely quiet person with special needs.

When I finally got all the chairs I could find set up, it became obvious that it was never going to be enough, so people were just lining up against the walls.

Then, the most bizarre thing happened. The dead woman and her parents arrived. They walked in with her. They announced that she was brain dead, the plug had been pulled, but she hadn't yet died. They climbed to the platform area, laid her in the coffin, and proceeded to close the lid while she screamed and cried and tried to fight her way out.

The parents (one who is actually deceased) turned to the gathered mourners and said not to worry, she would be dead soon. And she was. The service went on.

Then, nobody would leave. There was a feeling of numbing shock after witnessing that. THGGM and I could not get to our car due to the non-movement of cars lined up outside, so we took the bus.

The bus experience was an entirely different bizarre world. The bus driver was reclining sideways in a crib like contraption. He was feeding a baby a bottle, and rarely were his eyes on the road. All the people on the bus looked mean. In my dream, I remember thinking that none of them looked like the happy people in Baby Boy's "The Wheels on the Bus" book.

I didn't know where home was, but we got off the bus at the intersection of Godfrey and Burton and walked to my 'old family home' (the one my mom wants to go 'home' to). I kept saying to THGGM that I don't live there anymore. So we just kept walking. And walking. And walking.

At one point I asked him if he wanted to talk about the funeral. He didn't answer me.

We walked all the way back Most of the cars were gone, but in the first two rows of chairs people were still sitting, as if petrified, staring where the coffin had been.

We worked around them, stacking up the empty chairs and putting them away.

As we were wondering in whispers what to do about the people still in the seats, THGGM said we should just lock-up and they could let themselves out.

At that point, a man we used to know stood up from the front row. He turned around and calmly said. "So, it's come to this." And he made a sweeping motion with one arm to the platform.

Nobody said anything. They just quietly filed out.

THGGM turned out the lights.

Tonight, I hope I dream that I am looking for a bathroom, find one, and it has cat food in it.