Book of Days: asher553

I'm back in the town where I grew up, driving down Avery Street. My Dad is in a car a little ways behind me, and I wait at the corner for him to catch up. Pretty soon we arrive home.

Stephanie - who has been missing for some time, it's unclear why - appears at the door. By this time our father is asleep. She talks about wanting to die. "Why do you want to die," I ask her, thinking maybe if I listen and understand, maybe I can help her to not want to die.

"I don't feel like I'm good at anything," she says. "If I died, would anybody miss me?"

There's a notebook in her hand, with a page full of her drawings and doodles. Wherever she's been, it seems she has been following current events, because her next story seems to be something about Mohammed. I think it is called "Mohammed and the Feather".

I want to talk to her, tell her how much I've missed her, but the words won't come. I just hold her little body in my arms and start sobbing until the tears come.

Then I wake up, and remember how long she's been gone, and that she's not coming back.

I am exploring, Indiana Jones -like, some ancient tomb covered with mysterious inscriptions. I've been told that the writing was carved into the stone with the teeth of rabid cats and bats. I make my way among very live spiders.

I keep thinking about this dream that I posted a while back in LJ:

http://asher63.livejournal.com/184959.html

I'm in a MacDonald's in Tehran. By chance, I look up and see - either directly through the window, or reflected in the glass - a familiar figure: the scruffy beard, the cruel, arrogant smile, and the famous eponymous dinner jacket. He's surrounded by officials and bodyguards and he appears to be sitting down to a meeting in a neighboring building.

"He's here! Everybody get down!" somebody shouts in English (or else I can understand Farsi). Everyone in the restaurant dives under the tables. I steal a peek out the window in time to see a blinding flash, followed by a series of ear-splitting booms. Glass and overturned tables are everywhere, but people are cheering. Then there's the sound of sirens, but it's all over.

Best. Dream. EVER.

Two very vivid dreams last night. (Yay for segmented sleep.)

From my dream journal:

I was back home visiting - both parents are still living - and now I'm ready to fly back to the West Coast. Mom and Dad give me a bunch of useless, bulky gifts including a big set of luggage (yes, this is *actually* a dream about "baggage" from my parents) and I'm wondering how I'm gonna schlep all of it back on the plane.

Note to subconscious: Could you please try to come up with something a little more original next time? Thank you.

Now, this is more like it! Went back to sleep and saw the Temple. Or at least the Ark of the Covenant. It wasn't in Jerusalem, it was hidden in a house in some small town ... I don't know where it was, exactly. But there were some people around, and they asked if I'd like to see the Ark, and I said of course. There was a little path that led down. I opened the Ark - it was a lot like a Torah ark in a modern synagogue - but it was empty. Had someone stolen the Tablets? They told me that back in Roman days, they used to have several dummy copies of the Tablets of the Covenant as decoys because the Romans kept trying to steal them. But no, the Tablets hadn't been stolen; some other people were coming in with them now, men and women carrying something.

Turns out the Tablets weren't stone blocks like you'd expect. They were a pair of cylinders, looking and feeling very much like a Torah scroll but with crystal handles instead of wood. There were jewels on the cylinders that lit up, perhaps like the jewels in the Priest's breastplate. On either end of the cylinders there were signs, a dash and a cross. (Giant batteries?!?) The cross was very distinctly a Christian cross. I realized it couldn't have been copied from the Christians because the object was older than that. I grasped the handles in my hands.