Image from a Dream

My dreams have been vivid in my time here in Portugal. I love vivid dreams. They engulf me, convince me that I live in a different reality, which is good because it expands my consciousness to multiple planes of existence. The following is an example of an image from one of my many dreams. Just a warning – I wouldn’t consider this image pleasant, so read on if you are up for it.

They rolled her into the center of the church hall on what looked like a stainless steel operating table. Her cracked withering body had lost all ability to function on its own.

The entire congregation gasped at the sight of her. Even the priest, with his bible flipped to the page for wedding vows, had to remove his glasses and rub his eyes.

One mother shielded the eyes of her shocked five-year-old boy. Someone, it seemed, had pressed the pause button on this wedding ceremony to provide the appropriate mood for this moment of gravity.

She belted borderline nonsensical prayers with a quivering voice and intermittently managed to heave her chest to the heavens on points of emphasis. Her extremities were clamped down, and she was dressed in an ironically pleasant green Sunday’s best.

The priest, in his elaborate green robe whose excessive ornamentation he detested as absolutely unnecessary and – practically speaking – hot and heavy, bashed on with the ceremony as best he could.

Her presence was consuming. The discount tart perfume from the older female congregants did little to contest the stench of impending death and withering humanity overpowering the incense wafting about. Even those sitting in front of her continually turned their back on the ceremony to soak her in. They couldn’t believe she was real. And for the more pessimistic congregants (who preferred being referred to as “pragmatists”), she was a window into the future – a chilling reminder of age’s relentless consumption of the human vigor and spirit.

The priest, reciting the prayers he struggled to find meaning in after hundreds of thousands of recitations, envied her power over the people. He sang louder, rattled the incense with more intensity, but to no avail.