(5/19/09) pursued by an old friend

(Entered at 9:35 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

It was a sunny, blue day. I floated or walked along an asphalt road and then along a dusty dirt road or path. I floated/walked up to and then past a small bridge that went over a little creek that ran to my right. On the other side of the bridge may have been a border of dusty dirt, then a slightly rolling field of lawn, at the edge of which, surrounded by trees, may have been an apartment complex.

I "remembered" a conversation I'd had with my old boss BS, in which BS had implied how I hadn't been good enough to keep, and in which he'd implied that he'd do whatever he could to keep anybody else from ever taking me.

I felt trapped, doomed never to find work again. I thought I might as well get away from it all. I thought I'd go back out to work in nature, like I'd done before I'd gotten my office job.

I floated upward, maybe twenty feet in the air. Once I reached that height, my old friend R, who was out walking his dog, caught sight of me. I didn't want anything to do with R, and I tried to float away before he tried to contact me.

But R played some kind of sneaky trick. He called his dog to run out across a wide lawn that spanned off to the left of the path I'd been traveling along. (R and his dog had approached this area from the right side of the path.) My goal had been, and still was, to fly out along the left field.

I knew R would call his dog out to follow me through the field. Then, regardless of where I went, R could go there, too, forcibly contacting me and justifying it by saying that this, after all, was where his dog had spontaneously chosen to go, and that R had had no choice but to follow his dog.

I decided to throw R's dog off my trail. I don't know how I did it. The ground below me was deep with snow. It spanned far to the horizon. I caused R's dog to veer far to the left. For some reason, I then began following the dog, hoping to cause the dog to veer farther and farther off course.

But soon the dog sped so far ahead of me that I was panicking to catch up with it, in hopes of throwing it irretrievably off course. I was also hoping, in all of this chase, to speed (still flying) so far ahead of R that he'd have no ability to catch up with me before my plan was complete.

But now I looked and saw R behind me, only a hundred or so yards away, even after all my efforts. R was slowly, but confidently and ruthlessly, plodding through the snow.

I flew through a "suburban neighborhood" (it looked completely deserted, with snow drifts filling the streets and even the houses). I was still calling after R's dog, who still charged along through an open, vast field in the distance.

I flew through a snowy backyard, under the (leafy?) canopy of a low tree, and through the sliding-glass back door of a house. I quickly flew through the house, which was dim, with only natural light coming through the windows, and which had snow drifts piled halfway up to the ceiling.

I flew through a paneless front window and into a front yard. The front yard felt extremely small, surrounded by small trees, with snow drifts up almost to the top of the (chest-high?) chain-link fence. The sunlight reflected golden off the snow.

I looked behind me. R was still following. He was now coming through the back of the house.

I couldn't fly anymore. I was trudging frantically through the snow, trying to get over the fence. Once I was past the fence, I felt, I would have a little bit more security and a little better chance of avoiding R. But for some reason it was extremely difficult to straddle and jump the fence. My heart and muscles were straining.

I was shouting at R's dog, trying to throw her as far off course as possible, but also pleading, like I was trying with all my heart to trick R into thinking that his dog was my friend.

R was now in the front yard. He grabbed one of my feet and tried to pull me back into the yard. I tried desperately to shake him off and jump the fence.