The Thaw Before The Spring

Love Like A Sunset
(*Please play this video while reading*)

Love is like a sunset.

On sunday night, I slept with a restlessness. I was flummoxed. That
night, I was tossing, turning and gasping after a violent dream.
That same night, I awoke at 2 am after falling asleep at midnight
with a ringing in my ears and a pressure throughout my being. I
couldn't get back to sleep.

The dream entailed horrible things - like seeing my own father gunned
down by a machine-gun helicopter in the dead of night and being
helpless to do anything. Later, when I found the culprit of the
shooting in the dream, I drove a rusty camping knife into the back
of his neck. I don't remember seeing any blood. I just remember
that the knife would not penetrate the skin and that I had to drive
it into the back of his neck with furious, consecutive jabs.

A few moments later in the dream, I was with the culprit and a
few other people in a dark room with a moonlit window...and we
were all in different beds.

I'll explain.

To give some pretext, what I understood from the synopsis of the
dream was that we (the culprit, my dad, myself and few other
faceless, nameless people) were all playing a 'game' and that the
point of said 'game' was to get from one point of a dark field to
another without using any weapons. Myself and my dad were on
one team (with a few other people I don't remember) and Locke
(the character from Lost) was with a bunch of other people on
another team. My dad and I started in the field together and
started moving towards the end goal - when in an instant, we
could hear the roar of the chopper in the sky. As soon as we saw
it, high up on the sky almost looking like a pixel in an Atari game
it was so far away, it mowed down a bunch of people - including
my dad. I kept running.

In my frantic run, I remember thinking 'I wish I had a knife' and
BANG - there in a dark field, a knife appeared on the wet grass.
This was also no ordinary knife - this was a wood-handled
camping knife from the basement of my parents house. I
picked it up and felt familiar. After getting the knife and
concealing it, I met up with the opposing team on the way to
downward-leading staircase to the side of the field. The
staircase was concrete and dimly lit and Locke from the other
team passed me, explaining to his teammates that 'they won
fair and square' and that 'the helicopter was approved by the
higher power'. Apparently, the authority of some higher
power commissioned the use of the helicopter. I didn't care.
I saw Locke's neck in front of me on the stairs and I knew
what I had to do. I lunged at him with a series of jabs and
drove the knife in deep. As he fell, he mumbled the words
'you...cheated'.

The next thing I knew, Locke, myself and the rest of his
team were in the aforementioned dark room, all in our own
beds, as if we had all awoken from the same dream. There
were whispers of confusion and people saying 'What the hell
is going on?'. Locke seemed to know and looked out the
moonlit window beside his bed saying the words 'This is it.
The harvest at the helm'.

That was last night. Which led to yesterday morning.
(*skip ahead to 5:40 on the video and read the next part
slowly*)

But not this morning. This morning, I awoke with the sleet and
grey skies...and I felt renewed. I felt like a coil had been shucked
from the detritus of my exoskeleton - like I had slept while
floating on my back in a Lanark County lake. I could breathe
again. I felt normal - soothed. Appeased. At peace.

I showered in water that seemed like it was from the ocean -
drying and rejeuvenating me at the same time. I combed
back my thinning hair, put on a freshly starched dress
shirt and tie, and made my way to work.

In the highs and lows and ebbs and flows, we are here.

And here I am.

Love is like a sunset.

posted by Matt McKechnie @ 7:15 AM Comments: 4