Dream
or had it been a dream?
surrounded by water,
not far from Lubbock
That night she had the dream again. She’d been trying to suppress it but it kept recurring. In the dream she recalled how after the months of earthquakes She and Alvin had been walking along the newly formed sea shore. Their Mesa was now an Island. It was a pretty day. They were now separated by a few miles of water from the Caprock Escarpment. Some folks in Lubbock were beginning to wonder if theLlano Estacado, usually called the ‘high plains of Texas’ , would flood too.
It hadn’t.....barely. It had been a close thing.
The cliffs on their mesa were over three hundred foot tall most places and from what they could tell just from looking the water had only come up fifty or so feet. It was ‘only’ two hundred and fifty or so foot down to water that was fifty foot deep. She recalled how, in the dream, they had gone to the edge to see. They hadn’t been careful. She had been the idiot that time and had stepped too close to the edge. Alvin had tried to pull her back. His added weight had been the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak. The earth at the cliff’s edge had been loosened by the constant water and the previous shaking of the numerous earthquakes perhaps. It had collapsed under them. It was a two hundred and fifty foot drop to the water below..... and they were falling.
In the dream they fell for fifty feet or so then scraped the side of the cliff which wasn’t perfectly vertical. It slanted out some and they began to slide down it’s side.... scrapping, digging and grabbing at anything within reach. The were trying to hold on to something to stop their fall. Didn’t happen, everything they grabbed came loose in their hands. They slid down the side in a shower of dust, rocks, gravel and uprooted bushes which slowed them down plenty and probably saved their lives. They weren’t falling very fast when they slid into the water. The water was deep enough that they didn’t crash into the rocks below.
The dream water was chilly. It wasn’t COLD, cold but it was probably less than sixty degrees, invigorating. More like fifty she thought later. They were going to freeze to death if they didn’t do something soon. She and Alvin had taken a mandatory water safety course years ago when they’d purchased a fishing boat. She recalled that any water colder than seventy degrees could cause hyperthermia and death given enough time. This water was a LOT colder than that. The good part about the bad part was that they weren’t in open water. They were at the bottom of a two hundred and fifty foot cliff. They couldn’t get out of the water but they didn’t have to constantly fight to keep from sinking. They could hold onto small cracks or protrusions in the cliff to keep them afloat.
Had it NOT been a dream or a hallucination that was probably what kept them from dying right away. The wind wasn’t blowing and it would have been a pleasant day if they could get out of the water. They tried. Lord knows they tried. The loose soil kept letting go under them and they kept falling back into the water. Many times they had grabbed a small tree or a bush and were pulling themselves up, when it uprooted. They tumbled, ass end over tea kettle, back into the water.
They’d have died that day if it hadn’t been for the pair of small dragons. She and Alvin had noticed what they thought were a flock of Canadian geese flying high over head. They were surprised when two of the geese peeled off from the formation and dove on them. She swore it had to have been a hallucination from hypothermia induced by the cold water. Alvin would have agreed with her, except that he’d had the same hallucination, he saw them too. They weren’t Geese, they were Dragons the size of a wild turkeys.
Two dragons, hovering over their heads, impossible.
“Hi There” the two dragons said in chorus “That looks uncomfortable. Could you use some help?”
Surely it must have been an hallucination.
They hallucinated that they answered.
“It’s actually rather invigorating” Alvin said, always the smart ass, even in her dream. “It’s very brisk, but I’ve had enough fun and I want to go home now.“
“Problem is that we can’t seem to get out of here.” Julie agreed. This was stupid. Talking to imaginary dragons? They must be further gone into hypothermia than she thought. Oddly enough she didn’t feel cold. She’d read that in the later stages the victim felt warm.
“Oh I can help you.” the two Dragons said in perfect harmony, speaking in first tense which was really weird.
They hallucinated that the two dragons spun a thick thread much like spider silk, but thicker and stronger. The dragons attached the heavy threads to a larger overhead tree branch that was out of their reach.
They hallucinated that the dragons placed the ends of the threads into their hands for them to pull on. They wrapped the threads around sticks to make handles and not cut their hands then pulled the branch down low enough to grab. It held when they climbed out of the water. It was a very strong thread.
They’d hallucinated that the two dragons, had spun more thread and braided it into a rope. Then time after time, the dragons had flown the ropes high enough and tied them to another tree, a bush or looped around a solid rock outcropping.
They’d hallucinated that they had managed to climb to the top of the cliff .
They’d hallucinated that the two of them, and the dragons, had retreated back to their campsite, in the chilly breezy darkness.
They’d hallucinated that the two dragons, who had spoke as if they were one, had talked to them the whole way back to their campfire. The dragon had taught them many things, such as how to control drones and access something called the library. They didn’t know if they could believe it or not.
They’d hallucinated that when they got back to their tent they’d crawled inside to warm up and snuggle. The dragons had said, once more as a duet.
“I got to go now.” it said “I just spotted other folks in dire need. Oh. Silly me. I almost forgot. Here, take these.”
They’d hallucinated that suddenly each dragon was wearing a diamond necklace. Alvin and especially Julie would surely have noticed that before. Where had they came from? The Dragons removed the necklaces from their own heads and placed one over Julie’s and then Alvin’s.
They’d hallucinated that Lucy said “Ware the sting” just before the necklaces stung them.
They’d hallucinated that the little Dragons had sang one final duet. “Ya’ll take care now. Seeyabye”
They’d hallucinated that the life had went out of the two dragons. They were no longer animated and might as well have been toys. Alvin and Julie were exhausted from the days events, the life went out of them too, they went to sleep also.
To Be Continued
Yarn
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If you are just now discovering this story and want to read more
it begins here
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Disclaimer
The Hobo Picture is a Public Domain image from
Samantha at the Worlds Fair
by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
Illustrated by
Baron C. De Grimm published by
Funk and Wagnall's Company 1893
.
The Badges are graciously provided by @elyaque
.
The picture of the Caprock Escarpment
is from
WikiPedia
Unless otherwise noted
All other Illustrations are from
Pixabay