The first thing I remember is ending someone's life. He was wearing a black coat, lying prone by a lake of black glass. I was slowly pushing a kitchen knife into his chest, which made creaking noises like the mannequins at CPR training. I was feeling frustrated and petty. His wife was standing beside him, watching, and as I stood she said, "I can't let you get away with that."
I got up and ran down to the lake, out onto an old wooden dock, then dove cleanly into the water. I surfaced behind an empty dingy furthur along shore, keeping it between me and a Coast Guard boat that churned by malevolently, obviously looking for me. I could sense purposeful movements all along the shore. The water was cold, and clear, but so deep that it looked black. After the Coast Guard passed, I got up onto the water as if it was somehow solid and ran after a cruise ship travelling in the opposite direction. I jumped onto the ship like it was a play structure in a children's playground. I pushed through unnoticing crowds of people, trying to get to the other side of the boat. I heard police pushing after me. There was no urgency, no guilt, no strong emotions of any kind, just me finally escaping the press, jumping off the boat onto shore and running up a grassy hill into a nearby large white house.
Suddenly I knew the house was in a large city. I ran upstairs, which appeared to hold classrooms of students for advanced subjects. I told one student where he should buy textbooks, and pretended to look studious in a different classroom, but thought to myself that they would soon realize I was not a Teacher's Assistant. I shut the door to the narrow wooden stairs leading upstairs, letting in a few of my friends (faceless) in the process. As I put plywood in front of the door, I could hear a SWAT team coming up the stairs with a battering ram. I picked up a red phone on a small table just to my right. I called my Dad to tell him what I had done, with the thought that if only he understood, I was all right with whatever else might happen. But I couldn't reach him, and for some reason I was flooded with the most searingly tangible sense of immeasurable sadness. I knew I could not escape, and I felt this profound sense of loss and regret at the waste of my life. I hung up the phone, and turned to my friends. With a sincerity that I can still feel, I said,
"I couldn't reach my father."
My friends murmured condolences at this, but I could only wonder,
"and this is a sadder moment to me than ending someone's life."
I turned and was suddenly walking out of a door hitherto unnoticed on the main floor. I still had a sense of people trying to bring me to justice, but I also knew that the authorities had purposefully disregarded this door in order for me to escape. I remember thinking in the dream that the police must have overheard my sadness. At peace, I walked out onto the busy street, knowing my life would never be the same because of what I had done.
As I began to walk away from my life and everything I had known, I met both of my parents and my sister. I told them what I had done. I remember my mother saying it was all right and my sister smiling, then I was walking behind my Dad towards the flight desk at the airport. Somewhere we had obtained (with blessing it felt) false passports, even though as I gave mine for inspection I noticed it was my childhood bank-book. The seated stewardess and the one standing by the door smiled at us and ushered us into first class. Then the plane was in flight and I knew I was safe. I sat down beside a striking woman in a dark green dress. She seemed familiar. As I sat, there was suddenly a large number of females in the seats ahead of me, who had turned and were looking at me in stern recognition. I placed a hand lightly on the knee of the girl beside me, and leaning forward counted them aloud.
"There are seven of you?" I asked with a grin.
"Yes, we're septuplets," said one, "two triplets and a singlet."
And we all laughed, and as I sank back into my seat, I knew that everything was going to be okay.