Dream

Creative Writing Assignment for October 27,1994
DREAM Nancy Griesinger
　
The wind is rough... moving swift around me...swirling me. I am floating. Like a leaf, I am floating. Down the river I swirl holding my curled feet to my hands. I am brown tinged bliss.
Darkness covers me, and dry dead leaves rustle in the shadows. My legs are scurrying, running along the edge of a wood. I turn myself into circles as I run, gathering speed, I am jumping, leaping, springing. Springing my legs up out of the tall grasses. Springing my legs like pogo sticks. My arms flail about and then become quiet. My body spirals up toward the night sky. When the wind slows, I float on the stillness. The air is dry and warm, then cold and wet. I drift, then soar in the dark invisible world. I float over black hills and deep valleys. The air around me does not move. There is no sensation of heat or cold. Just quiet. A peaceful quiet I can touch. I feel at home. A fog settles around me and I float happily, moving wherever the moist air is leading.
In a sunlit valley below I can see a house. I float down closer and turn my body in order to see its shape against the deep grass. The grass is swaying back and forth and growing up over the house. I float closer still. The roof is tar paper, black against the sky. It is dappled with the shadows of leaves. I see an object on the rooftop. A light colored outline. It clings to the roof, pressing itself against the black tar paper. I drift in a circle around the little house. Morning is creeping over the horizon and I can see the object clearly. It is a frozen kite.
The windows of the house look warm, glowing with yellow lamplight. They look pale and diffused as if they are melting out of their frames, oozing out into the night. There is movement behind the windows. Cheerful movement, and I long to float inside. I will myself to float through the warmth of the windows, but... cannot move.
There is a sound like knocking. A demanding hammering of sound. I want to speak but can only cry. I try to free myself. I want to answer... I need to answer... the knocking. I begin to sob and the tears are on my cheeks, flowing warm and salty and dripping down into my hands. The knocking stops.
Grey smoke, soft and swirling, pumps out of the chimney. Rays of sun wink above the horizon. The sky is pink. I float toward the rooftop and the frozen kite. I can see frost in a glistening sheen on the roof. The kite remains perfectly still. The kite is waiting, its long, cloth tail stuck in the ice crystals.
　
My body stops floating. All is still... quiet. The windows are suddenly red with fingers of fire reaching out into the night toward me. The soft, grey smoke turns black as coal and comes rushing, bellowing, thundering toward me. The people running from room to room are frenzied, frantically looking for a way to escape.
I reach my hand to touch them and feel ...ice...