12 January 2011

repeats

I just woke from one of my repeating, most horrifying dreams.

Actually--repeating dreams is a concept that befuddles me. Are my dreams really repeating, or does my mind just think it's dreamt it before? For some that constantly occur, it's more obvious, but for ones that I feel like happened before but do not have any timeline to help me place it...all the more confusing.

I think this one arose because of something I wrote last night, concerning aesthetics. The dream focused around a kidnapping of one of my former best friends, who moved. She's the most adorable thing in the world, thus a kidnapping is more than believable, unfortunately. I hate to say that. But in the dream, the beginning and middle is more focused on who might the kidnapper be, and where can we (a team) find him? Right now the only scene that is opaque in my memory is the ending one, where we have found the man, but for years, still do not know where the girl is. From her assumed perspective, we see the room. Her bed sits in the middle, matte wooden floors surrounding; a bookcase on one end, dresser on the other, a large window revealing the bay, and a loft railing. The perfect apartment complex; my perfect, dream flat...except the authorities and I have been in this place month after month, trying to find any other clues of where the man hid her.

And then, in the midst of another twirl around the room from "her" perspective, eyes focus on a faraway detail; not in her room, but visible from the loft nonetheless. A small opening in the ending wall--my best's narrative floods in.

My favorite place, she smiles. The nook. It's difficult to get to, but it's the most serene place in the house. I can escape and read for hours; it's my secret hiding spot.

Could it be more obvious? Why haven't we checked the location? And then another memory seeps in; the real-estate agent, someone who dealt with the kidnapper but was deemed an unconscious ally, and his words. We can't sell that room; what could have been a marketable living space due to that spot is not placed high enough to fall under the natural light, and it's covered; the room is too high to its surroundings.

Something outrageous, but accepted due to the manner at which it was executed--no, the agent wasn't trying to trick us, but had been duped himself. And so we had never checked it, since the assumption was that they had already searched it thoroughly. Blatantly and carelessly ignored.

We run downstairs and climb up to the small loft-like area through using a series of pipes my friend once showed me...we reach the top, only to see a door. Locked...but easily broken down. And then a small hallway with other doors (once filled with temporary tenants?), but once opened and revealed...there she is, in one of them. Sitting there, unaware, calm but in shock.

I cry, for hours. How did we not find you before? Were you treated well? You must have been so bored, confined here; but her answers are unusually calm, with the stigma of someone who accepted her fate and thus attempted a more positive attitude. She shows me around; she quite likes it, actually; was never mistreated, "simply" stored away. And what a beautiful view she had for those years, observing the outside world through a large, glass bay window...hoping someone would notice the odd placement of the window, hoping someone would see her, rescue her, save her. Hearing slight murmurs each day, but unsure of where she really was, unsure if she was overseas, on domestic land, close to where she once lived--or living in her old home.

But the most heartbreaking fact is that she was sound-proofed; she was unable to make any clear indicator of her existence. We walked by several days each month, pondering the chances of her still being alive...and meanwhile, she was waiting, unable to distinguish our efforts from the white silence of her everyday life.

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