The grass was wet with morning dew, the small drops of condensation covered my feet as I walked. The sky was dark. The clouds were green. The land around me was twisted, altered by some type of long exposure to a strange worldly pollution. Something appeared on the horizon, a small dot at first, and I realized I had started to glide slowly toward it. Suddenly I was inside. Warped, rotting wood surrounded me. A strange smell rose to me suddenly, familiar somehow.

           This house symbolized something. A holy landmark forgotten over this disintegrating eternity, a living piece of time. Inch by spiritually-forsaken inch it was losing its balance, slipping, slowly going insane. I realized suddenly that this house was not a house. My mind began to see it as a living animation. It was, in act, the very axis of this odd world I was in. Something was eating at this axis, slowly destroying it.

           A small hole appeared in the floor in front of me and grew larger until it stopped at my feet. As I looked down I realized a thick mob of humans was moving through the house slowly walking, synchronized.

           I moved again.

           I saw the people, all kneeling down with their foreheads to the ground. It suddenly struck me they had no clothing, neither did they have arms. More were entering the area, each kneeling down when there was no more room to move. The line of people disappeared on the horizon. The house was slightly visible still.

           A tree, that's what the people were facing, a tall, dead, black tree. I saw heads hanging from the tree limbs, but the heads were not there; there weren't any heads, but there were somehow. The heads had dull faces, without trace of feeling. I touched the tree, and it began to bleed, gradually at first then it began to gush out coming in a small stream soaking my feet and ankles, staining them red. The people began to scream, every last one of them. The tree collapsed sending an intense wave of blood across the land. The line of humans coming to worship the tree did not flinch as they were crushed beneath the force. The house stood against the wave as I rode it.



© 2000 Kevin O'Leary, all rights reserved
 appears here by permission

Author Notes            This story is based on dream I had.