First a poem then a dream:
The Poem
In america
I feel that someone
is going
to kill me
In america
I see persons
lurking among the shadows waiting
to kill me
In america
I hear my name
called by voices wanting
to kill me
In america
I hear footsteps on
wet pavement approaching
to kill me
In America
I crouch in a corner with nowhere to hide
from those who want
to kill me
In america
I see shadows of
knives drawn
to kill me
In america
I hear clicks of guns
aimed
to kill me.
In america
I hear my neighbors
scream
and at night I dream
of dying
in america.
Why these dark thoughts? Perhaps America is why.
The dream
I dreamt once that she and I lived on a planet called La Terre Noire, an immense crystal sphere—perhaps a million miles in diameter. It was a very dangerous place to live because the crystal surface often collapsed under the weight of an unfortunate passer-by who would then fall with the fragments of black crystal into the inner abyss of the planet’s interior. Most people never left their dwellings. They could not face the abyss upon which they passed their lives. Hardly a day would go by without some community sinking into the abyss.
The surface would begin to crack making loud popping sounds and the city would collapse toward its center. In their frantic attempts to escape the sinking city, people would clog the tunnels that connected buildings. Some would rush away from the center of the city, trying to escape along the web-like tendrils that held the city together and were supposed to prevent a community from slipping into the darkness. Often instead the part of the city that broke through the crystal would drag the rest of the city downward. At most, the tendrils gave some people time enough to escape to firm ground and flee from the city which would soon disappear.
It was horrible to watch a city gradually descend below the planet’s surface and to hear the shouts for help and screams of those who were doomed to eternal night. Yet, it was no less horrible to see the ground collapse beneath a single individual. It was as if the person had been walking on plate-glass that began to make a cracking sound then suddenly opened beneath him or her. The person wouldn’t suddenly disappear but slowly drift downward. Sometimes lines, if available, were thrown to the desperate person, but this was rare because people were afraid to approach the edge of the broken crystal. Usually one could only watch the expression of terror of the person who realized that he or she was about to perish. The horror was further increased by the realization that the person might sink for hours perhaps days without losing consciousness as his or her soul was enveloped in darkness until it finally flickered out. Then slowly the crystal would heal itself and the rupture would disappear.
It was the fear of disappearing alone in the darkness that prevented all but the bravest souls from venturing beyond the city. She and I would leave the city to wander above the great black expanse. We would sit upon a piece of dead crystal and contemplate the black abyss that would one day swallow us and our glorious world. We knew that our lives were momentarily suspended between two abysses, one below, one above that met at the thin line of the horizon. At times we would cry at the horrifying abyss beneath us that continuously threatened our lives and everything. Nothing would escape. Other times we would laugh hysterically and embrace one another, or holding hands quietly gaze with mournful eyes at the stars above. We had no past, no future. We simply were that moment. We knew that we could disappear into the abyss at any time, so we held hands that we would not perish alone.
This is certainly a weird dream with which to begin a new year, the very day when people show their love for one another by wishing each other the best for coming year. I think they do this for the same reason they celebrate Christmas. Deep down inside they know that they will not always be together, that one day the grasp will be broken.
The poem and the dream were borrowed from Desperate Love: A Ghost Story Told through Letters by Frank Kyle.
