The Open Door

January 2005

Dream Journal

Dreamt I went back to school and I was in algebra class.  Unlike in my other dreams I was actually having fun, thinking I might be able to catch up and not fail the course, when suddenly one of my classmates shouted that someone had a gun.  Everyone started to scream and run.  In the hallway I saw the guy with a gun.  He was from another high school, a football player.  The room we all escaped into had a telephone, but when I dialed 911 they put me on hold.  The football player came into the room and we all ran again, panicking.

Everyone got ahead of me and went outside, in a direction they knew he wouldn’t think to follow.  I was trying to follow but suddenly I couldn’t run at all--it was massive effort to lift my feet.  The football player came outside with another guy and a girl, and they were all laughing together, like they were having fun killing people and scaring us.  I climbed a brick wall and tried to hide in a drainage ditch, but they’d seen me.  As I was climbing the wall the girl took the gun and shot me in the foot.  When I then crouched in the gutter she shot at me again and just missed my stomach.  Somehow I knew I would have died had that bullet been even half an inch closer.

Finally I managed to jump out of the gutter despite my wounded foot.  I ran through a cemetery full of huge holes in the ground, down side streets, even through people’s houses, as I followed signs to a road that I knew would lead me home.  But when I reached the road I looked over, and the girl with the gun was walking alongside me.  She seemed very queer and scary.  Although she wasn’t holding the gun I knew she was still dangerous.  I tried to pacify her with small talk. 

When we reached my house I managed to go down to the basement without her.  Although people were home no one in the house was helping me.  I grabbed the phone in my brother’s room and called the police, but the police wouldn’t let me tell them what was going on.  They just kept blathering on about how they knew the shooting had taken place and they were looking for the suspect.  I couldn’t get a word in edgewise to tell them the suspect was in my house! 

Then all at once the girl was standing in the doorway to my brother’s room. She accused me of calling the police.  I shook my head and tried to say things into the phone that made it sound like I was just having some random phone call.  She obviously didn’t believe me.  In a somber tone, she told me, “Think of all the lives you’re going to ruin.”