All I remember that it was uphill, almost like if the street had been clawed up into the side of the mountain. The road in itself didn’t posses anything admirable, it was dust and earth that twisted and curved taking me higher and higher. Houses lined each side of the road, old wooden houses, like those you would expect the poor in third world countries to live in. The roofs were occasionally build of zinc boards, but more often than not they were either shriveled palm leaves or long pieces of metal and wood. The windows were cracked, the doors flapped like flags in the bellowing dry wind and they stood almost leaning to the neighboring house. Occasionally one or two of the houses would have a fence around them, protecting their space, this fence would be flimsy, mostly pieces of rotten metal rods held together by other pieces of metal.
I walked barefooted upon this road, looking from side to side in a kind of horror at the different houses. Never once did I consider the reason of why I could be here, never once did I think that I was out of place. I just thought of walking forward and that for some unknown reason I had to get to the very top of this “mountain.”
Despite the dryness of the road it felt muddy and clingy underneath my feet, still none of this felt odd. It was just the persistent feeling that I had to get up there.
The wind suddenly picked up blowing dust upward; instinctively I raised my arm to protect myself from the dust. However, even after I covered my eyes it still felt as if the dust blew on my face making my eyes watery. Blinking rapidly I slowly lowered my arm and looked around, finding to my right a house, it didn’t stand up from the other ones in any special way, but if you looked closely at the cracked window you would see blood, dripping from the sharp corner of the glass and behind the shattered window I saw what looked like a human being, staring straight ahead. I squinted but the features of the face were obliterated by the distance. Curious, I drew a step towards the house, followed by another, but then I caught the number of the mailbox.
15021 appeared to be written starkly for all to see. For some reason that number frightened me and I drew back as if I just had been struck.
I gingerly drew away from the house, my steps fast. Now I was concentrating on just moving forward, not looking to my sides or even trying to catch any details of the different houses. After a few minutes of this frantic walking my breath began to deepen and grow ragged, the sun seemed to beat down on me -the wind seemed to be trying to make me give up. But I was determined to make my way to the top, I stubbornly refused to turn around and leave.
Soon I caught the smell of what could only be fire and sure enough when I turned my gaze towards what lay just a few meters away from me there was black smoke rising towards the sky. The wind blew and what reached my face wasn’t dust alone, but ashes as well.
Panic shot through me and I started frantically running towards the fire, my feet slapping against the suddenly dry earth. Then I spotted something moving in front of the flames, and I slowed down my pace. Without warning the person turned around, revealing skin darkened by the ashes, hair matted with dirt, I could barely recognize who it was, though something told me I knew this person from somewhere. His eyes met mine and a grin appeared on his face.
“Wake up,” he said.
- - -
Yet another odd dream I had.
-P&U
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