Last night definitely influenced my dreams. A tornado swept over my home town at the same time my parents were sitting in the audience of my play. Our house wasn't damaged, thankfully, but I couldn't help but consider the what ifs of the situation, and those worked their way into my dream.
I'm wandering through a circular room inside a log cabin. The walls are riddled with shallow cubbyholes, and each one contains a different dog. Somehow, I know each and every one by name, though there must be over a hundred. Stairs lead down to a living area, and I realize that this is my home...the home unfettered by social expectations or practicality. The refrigerator is beside the jacuzzi, with a computer a mere arm's reach away. A huge bay window overlooks the ocean, while the mesas of the western desert are visible through the opposite window. The air smells like cedar, warm and comforting. I start to settle in, and the dogs all begin howling...they sound like a siren. Then I realize there is a siren blaring, and they are merely matching its tone. I rush outside and run into a wall of wind which nearly forces me back inside the cabin. I suddenly remember that my parents are on their way, and run down the highway in the direction from which they are coming...I see the tornado. Not at all like the pretty CGI mockery from Twister, this bad boy is apocalyptic in size, radiating malevolence. It wants them dead.
I find their car trapped beneath a fallen overpass. The roof is caved in, but I can see they're alive. The overpass saved them, since other vehicles are being swept into the sky and crushed like empty beer cans. I can't get theeir door open! I rip my hands to ribbons trying to breach their vehicle, but nothing works. I feel sick and weak and scared, and I can't summon the strength to break their windshield. They're bleeding inside the car. I look for a hammer, a piece of pipe, anything to use as a tool...a crutch, but everything is gone into the tornado, and the tornado is almost above us. At the last moment, I have to run for safety. The cyclone above pulls at me, slowing me to a crawl, and finally to stillness, flat on the ground and grabbing at blades of grass to stay rooted to earth. The last thing I see before I lose my grip is the round cabin, and I wonder who is going to take care of my babies if I don't live through this?