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Dream the Dream
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we are the dreamers of
- Ode
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy
a dream deeply rooted
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Louis awoke with a start, his too-damn-vivid dream still aching and fresh in his mind. He squinted up at the sunlight streaming through the palm fronds above him as the dream-memories flooded back. After a few moments, he shook his head sleepily and looked around to take his bearings. He was lying near the pool in the freshwater stream he had found the day before. He was still stranded on an unknown tropical island and completely alone. I am gifted with a life beyond the imagination of ordinary men. Louis thought sardonically. Unless this is still a dream. He was not entirely sure it wasn’t.
Louis shivered unconsciously even though the sun was high overhead and nearly burned his exposed flesh with its intensity. The vision from his dream (within a dream?) was seared into his memory. He knew he would never forget, could never forget. He sighed, sat upright, shook his head, and rubbed his eyes to clear away the last of the sleepiness that still clung to them. As he did, he tried to make some sense of what he had seen.
He remembered walking through a mysterious, misty, Eden-like landscape, completely lost but content to simply wander about, fascinated by the overwhelming beauty of his surroundings. After a while, he realized he was being followed. At first he didn’t pay much attention to his reptilian stalkers, after all, what was a primordial garden without a snake or two? The biggest was only a few feet in length, and Louis was not an ophiophobe, so he was not overly concerned, but their numbers kept growing and soon a roiling sea of serpents covered the whole of the earth behind him.
Prudence quickened Louis’ leisurely pace into a loping trot, then a light gallop, and finally – as panic overcame him – he burst into a full-on, frenzied run. As is sometimes the case in dreams, the faster he moved, the faster the pursuing serpentine swarm caught up with him. Desperate, Louis tried to veer away to his left, but the snakes seemed prescient and were already blocking that path. He looked to his right and realized that direction of escape was blocked as well. At this point, unable to elude the inevitable, Louis finally gave up. He surrendered, standing agonizingly still, accepting his fate.
The snakes also stopped, as if waiting for something to happen. After a few tense minutes Louis began to walk again, slowly, probing to test the serpents' reaction to his movements. His reptilian cordon slithered along with him, always maintaining a gap just in front of him through which he could pass safely. After an indeterminate amount of time, for no discernible reason, the formation of snakes shifted and he was forced to change direction accordingly. Realizing he was being herded towards some thing, Louis quickened his pace out of sheer curiosity. Eventually he was rewarded, in a sense.
Ahead in the distance, a gnarled tree arose, otherworldly and ancient beyond human reckoning – afire and billowing smoke, yet remaining unconsumed by the flames. Beneath the ancient tree’s fiery boughs, she waited for him. At first glance, he had mistaken her for a gently sloping mound with a dark object sitting atop it. This turned out to be an illusion produced by the entity’s flowing garment, which appeared to be made from the long grass so abundant about them.
As he moved closer, he was able to make out more details. Her dress was not made of grass, but of serpents identical to the ones who had escorted him to her. They formed a writhing mound from which only her upper torso and head protruded. Why the snakes twisted and twined together in a great mass around her was a mystery, which Louis found he was hesitant to contemplate. Perhaps because he already knew the answer.
She smiled so warmly and lovingly that any and all trepidation he might have previously felt melted instantly away. He continued moving closer to her, and she raised her arms in welcoming. At that moment, Louis realized he knew her, knew he loved her, and knew he had always loved her.
In an instant, her reptilian garment fell away. She stood before him naked and unashamed, beckoning him onward. One word fell from her lips as all the snakes let go at once and dropped away from her body. Phoenix gazed deep into his soul as she spoke in silent dream-speech. No sound escaped her lips, but Louis heard the word ringing in his ears as clear as crystal.
Come.
He shuddered as he remembered the snakes writhing around her body. He remembered finally seeing how they had been fastened to her and wishing he hadn’t. He remembered them opening their mouths, releasing their grasp upon her flesh. He knew then she was no mortal woman, for she had suckled each of the countless serpents that had enrobed her, one snake to each of her thousand breasts. And when they were finally sated, they had dropped away and crawled on their bellies to the ancient tree and spiraled up around his trunk. Climbing out onto its twisted limbs, they joined with the fire that burned but did not consume the tree. And then, aflame, they all rose into the sky like a rising rain of sparks, or swarm of fire-bees, and together formed a great phoenix, whose body and soul was them all.
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