No More I’s Capitalized… Just the You’s.

- 12:30 -

Last night was a very long dream of waking up and falling back asleep, which means that it got a little scattered. Here’s what I do remember:

In the summer of ‘09, a group of friends from home decided to take a trip to Africa as sort of a missions trip, but not exactly… haha. All of us wanted to help, but only some of cared to share the message of Christ.

On the plane ride there, I remember having a guitar. Daniel, Mark, and another boy I had just met and can’t remember now were all sitting in a circle, taking turns playing. The boy was on my left, Daniel was sitting in front of me, and Mark was on Daniel’s right. The way we played seemed to influence the way the plane flew.

So when we got to Africa, I started feeling very strange because I recognized a lot of the places we were going, although I hadn’t ever been there before.

We split up into groups and started going to different villages to help. One of the days I was in a group with Ian and Mark, and we were headed through this semi-desert place with some dunes here and there, but with trees as well. Once again, I got the feeling I recognized the place, and I even seemed to remember where the nearest village was, so I told Mark and Ian to follow me. We were walking along across the top of one of the dunes when we saw that a lot of the land in between the dunes had been flooded by a freak storm. It was going to be harder to get across, but if we walked on the very top of the dune, we would be able to get across.

As we were going, Ian slipped and started to fall in, so I slid down the dune a little ways to help him out, and right when I got down there I saw a big shadow in the water swimming right towards us. I freaked and pulled Ian out of the water and started trying to run up the side of the dune. Well, since it was just sand, this task was much harder than planned. As I was trying to get up, the thing underneath the water leaped up and out of the water for a second, and we saw what it was: a seahorse, in the more literal sense. The front of the thing was a horse, with brown and orange and white fur, (and slightly smaller than a normal horse, while at about the belly, the horse had a big fin, much like a mermaid. After the seahorse went back underneath the water, Ian and I scrambled trying to get back up. Mark was calling for help on his cell phone, and while he was talking another seahorse jumped out, and now there were two. Immediately they swam towards us and started nabbing at us with their teeth. Ian and I were scared to death, and one time, one of the seahorses got a hold of my heel, but I kicked it away. Eventually, we made it to the top of the dune and ran the rest of the way to the village.

Once we were there, I felt even more nostalgia for this strange place. So much in fact, that while the other two were in the village, helping people, I sat in a little clearing outside the village trying to get a grasp on what was going on in my head. About that time, a heavier woman from the village came running over to me, saying “Oh, thank the gods you’re here!” I had never seen this woman before, but apparently she knew me. She ran over to me, bawling, and took a hold of me in a great hug. After that, she collapsed on the ground, and started crying more. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, “Our baby…”

At this point, I was a little freaked out. I asked her what she was talking about, and she kept saying things about ‘our baby’ and ‘you’re a daddy’. Ok, so I then got royally freaked because I realized I couldn’t deny what she was saying since I had all these memories of this place. I started wondering if maybe I had been kidnapped and taken here drugged or something, and that’s why I could only barely remember it. The thought that I would have to somehow stay in Africa and care for a child started sinking on my mind, heavy. I started thinking, “How am I going to tell Ashleigh about this?”

Anyway, I went ahead and told her anyway that I couldn’t have been the father to her baby, a) because as far as I could remember clearly, I hadn’t been to Africa before, and b) I was a virgin (as far as I could remember).

She kept going on, crying. “Our baby, our baby!” It became clear that something wasn’t right. “What happened to your baby?” I asked her.

She told me that ‘while I was away’, she had a son, and given birth to it only a few feet away from where we were sitting. The boy was in bad condition when he was born, and didn’t live any more than a few hours. After that, she kept beating the ground with her fists and yelling the boy’s name, which was a really cool African name that I can’t remember. It started with a D.

About that time, I saw Ian and Mark running out of the village toward us with with another man. When they reached me, Mark said, “You found her!”

I was pretty lost this whole time….

I explained to them what had happened. Ian thought it was hilarious. The man they were with came over to the woman, checked on her, and then turned to me. He told me that this was his wife, and that he was really the father of her son. He told me that because of he grief, the woman had been acting delirious since the baby’s death. They thought that she had finally lost it and run off into the dunes to die. He apologized, and said he was very thankful that I found her, and that I shouldn’t believe anything she might have said.

I was, to say the least, a bit relieved.

The very last part of the dream I remember is kind of completely separate from anything else.

After we arrived back in Colorado at DIA, Mandi was there to pick me up in my jeep. Mom and Dad were busy doing something, so Mandi drove up, and I loaded my stuff and drove her home. Right when we were getting close to Lamar, Mac came from somewhere in the back of the jeep and sat behind the space in between the two front seats. Seeing him, I almost freaked and went off the road, but he hopped up on the compartment between the two front seats and Mandi and I petted him as we were going home. We didn’t know why he was there all of a sudden, but we were sure that at least mom would be very happy to see him.

We pulled up into the driveway, and Mac hopped out my side as Mandi was getting out her’s. But as soon as Mac was out, he looked up at me, and immediately morphed into a young woman with a sort of devilish grin on her face. (I don’t know how else to describe it haha.) To say the least, I had had enough freaky things happen to me that week, so I just stood there and looked at the woman. She took a few steps backward and slowly changed to this dark figure. It was almost like she was a shadow, only standing up in front of me. And I suddenly got the feeling she wanted to do me harm. So I ran right at her, getting ready to tackle or punch, or whatever else, but the shadow just disappeared, and Mac was no more once again.