Hateful Reveries

This morning, during the 20 minutes it took Jason to shower and make the coffee, I somehow managed to fall asleep and have a terribly upsetting dream.

I am in a large, wooden, lodge-style house. The crepuscule creeps through the large windows revealing that it is evening. There is some sort of large, extravagant formal party going on (I can tell because everyone is wearing a tuxedo or some sort of slinky black cocktail dress). I stand speaking to Amy Smart (I know, why her?) and I whip out my iPhone to take video of her for some habit-seeming although unknown reason.
Now here is where the first strange conflict occurs to me: Something about the style of dress, decor of the home, and sound of the music weaving its way amongst the partygoers implies that the timeframe is somewhere around the 40's. And yet I have an iPhone and use it with a seemingly automatic ease. I realize this in passing and then move my focus elsewhere.

As I am recording Amy, watching her comely features wrinkle into an impish smile, I hear some kind of low hum coming from outside the house. It's not unfamiliar enough to immediately raise my attention but Amy's face goes from cheerful to confused and then all of the way to frightened.

"What is it?" I ask her, stopping my recording.
"It's an air raid," she responds urgently, looking at the ceiling, her face growing more and more creased with fear.
"Air raid?" I am completely confused? Why would there be an air raid?

Then the first bomb drops.
Somewhere within the surrounding mile radius of countryside an explosion tears up earth, shreds lazy tree branches, and sends vicious tremors through the ground, shaking the house at its foundation. All of the guests have become aware of the outside threat and have begun the quick decent into mass hysteria. Ladies shrill voices calling for their husbands pierce the drumming noises of collective panic. Somewhere a child begins to cry, a desperate, terrified sound.

By the time I collect myself enough to begin moving I am already caught in the rampaging motion of dozens of guests trying to make their way to the basement for shelter. Hustled along by a sea of glitzy jewelry and black velvet, I strain to catch a glimpse of the landscape outside. Eventually, after struggling my way to one of the frames along the hallway, I pull aside the drapes. Outside there are patches of flame riddling the surrounding forestation and from the trees come a multitude of green-clad soldiers (reminiscent of the hollywood notion of Nazis).

I continue being pushed along by the crowd of scared guests (realizing that I have lost Amy amidst the throng) and eventually end up on the main floor (apparently the whole beginning of the dream happened with me on the second floor). At the base of the stairs there is an eerie quiet and all of the once-crazed guests stand in a still, silent daze in the main room. At the center of the space, in front of the giant stone fireplace, stands a regal looking officer wearing a brimmed hat and the same green-colored uniform as the outside soldiers, only his lapel is patched full of bright ribbons and medals. I cannot make out what he is saying but I know that he is delivering the "you are all my prisoners and you are all going to be shipped out to a containment facility immediately" speech.

In my bewilderment I turn around hoping to find somebody to ask precisely what is going on. I come face to face with a frumpy, smug looking female officer with a large scab running diagonally across the arch of her nose. It's terribly distracting and for a moment I am too taken aback to form a complete sentence. However I quickly regain my composure and try to ask her why I am being rounded up to be taken.

"Our directive is to gather and relocate the local Jewish community," she said with a cruel half smile.
"But I'm not Jewish," I tell her, only slightly frustrated (I don't want to seem difficult).
"That's not the reason we're taking you," she says with a knowing sneer. Had she continued to speak I knew her message would be something like, "you disgusting faggot."

There was an insidious, dripping hatred oozing out of her so palpably acidic that I rushed away from her as quickly as I could. I felt so angry, so scared, and so injured. It was as if I had just been set upon by a swarm of insects whose venom filled me with a sense of dirtiness, of foul, disgusting imperfection. I felt as I was disfigured.

In the morning the whole party is made to empty onto the lawns where a number of large trucks with gated beds, like the kind used to transport cattle, are parked along the edge of the grass. In front of these trucks are three or four white pavilion tents with picnic tables beneath each one.

We are all forced to file into the gated rear portion of the trucks, jammed in, closer and closer until it is quite obvious that there will not be room enough for anyone to sit down. I manage to position myself against the side of the cage so I can see what is happening around me. At the tables under the white pavilion tents sit all of the servants who had been serving the cocktails and the hors d'oeuvres at the gala the night before. They now sip coffee from china mugs and snack on biscuits on silver serving trays. They behave as if absolutely nothing is out of the ordinary. I want to cry out to them, to beg them for help, but I know they will simply ignore me and continue on with their mornings as if my pleas are no more than a few pesky summer flies.

I am beside myself with terror, wonder, and utter despair.

And then I woke up.