Jordan’s Dream

Whether this was a dream or whether it was real, I really don’t know now. I don’t think it matters. It’s not about the events, as I remember them or as they really happened, it’s about how I feel about it, how I felt about it then, what was going through my mind when it was happening.

I know I was in the shop where I work, and it was evening outside, going dark but not quite there. The light quality of a motion picture, darkness coming on but in such a slow, creeping way that you could not tell until it had overtaken you. Strong colours that not even the dark could mute. There was everyone I knew in that shop, some sort of surprise event. It didn’t make sense then, and I can’t make sense of it now. Family, friends, acquaintances, all there, all happy and normal, drinking, eating, laughing, having fun. I could feel the distance between them and myself.

I could feel it closing in before it happened. I remember a vague panic and a heavy feeling of inevitability, a fear of the immediate future. The other people being happy made me tense. I wanted them to be quieter, to be calmer, to be more sober. I tried talking to some of them in a relaxed way, but soon became agitated when they would not stop being giddy. Then I started noticing what was happening outside.

I glanced out the front window of the shop. The light quality now was turning from blue to brown, the street lights giving that false sense of brightness only seen in winter. Nothing seemed normal and real. Someone ran past the shop window, very fast. A few seconds passed. Another person running then, in the middle of the road, older, heavier, in discomfort because they were having to run. Running only because they had to, because they were afraid. Then another and another. All in the same direction, down the hill, mostly in the road. No traffic in the road. Just people running. Young children, arms tight out, pulled along by parents. Old women, days falling off their lives with every step. Fat men, fit to burst. Running as fast as they could.

I watched this in what I felt to be stone silence, then turned back to the people in the shop, expecting them to be staring out the window with the same fear and fascination I was feeling. Instead the noise broke into my world again, like the snap of a switch, and they were acting like nothing strange was happening. Had none of them seen what I could see right now if I turned my head back to that door and window?

I started telling them to pay attention, to notice what was happening. I started off loudly, then got louder still, and when no-one paid any attention I started shouting and almost screaming. No-one was responding. Turning back to the window there was a flood of people running, screaming, falling. I could hear them. Could no-one else? Now I was screaming so my throat hurt, and everyone in there just carried on talking, laughing, eating, enjoying. My head hurt. My mouth dried out. I turned back to the window.

Marching down the street, in a horrid slow motion, came soldiers. Nightmarish soldiers – long black coats, black automatic weapons slung over their shoulders, grasped ready in their hands. Faces were obscured by hard, black masks, grills in the front, black lenses covering eyes, peaked caps on their heads. Immaculately dressed, pristine, horrific. They were like waves of sound moving effortlessly but heavily through the air. And like waves of sound they seemed to have an impact on those in front of them. People started tripping and stumbling as they bore down on them. Then the soldiers raised their weapons and they fired them.

There was no sound to it, there was no sound at all at that point. In my head I could hear some awful screaming, something primal and animal and inhuman, screaming out of fear, panic, rage, abandon. Bright flashes flew from the end of the soldier’s guns and in concert colour leapt from the people in front of them. Dark bursts of red, almost crimson or purple, some seemingly black, shooting out through the air like particles escaping the orbit of a star. People falling, cut strings, heavy smash of heads and limbs on the floor. I turned in again and watched the gathered friends and family finally see what was happening. Now they looked like scared children. It took a few instants for one person to scream, then they ran for the back of the shop, crashing into the tiny backroom, blocked with boxes, finding the back door bolted shut. I stood watching as they descended into the same animal panic as the people outside had, the people who were now either dead or dying.

With no hesitation I abandoned my family, friends and colleagues. I ran up the stairs to the higher floor into the back room and leaped onto the counter. From there I pushed open the loft door and climbed up into dust and dark. I could hear breaking glass from back in the shop, then more screaming. Then gunfire made me jump. Up here was a way through the roofs of all the buildings on this street and then out onto the roof. I picked up a fire extinguisher and smashed the padlock off the first door and ran on. Soon I was three buildings down, the last building on the street. A short stair and through the door to the roof. Up there it had fully turned to night and a large moon left no shadows. Here was a world of grey, cold slate and white reflections and I clung onto a chimney stack as vertigo and panic washed over me. I looked up to see a black mask staring at me from the opposite roof, a gun barrel circle next to it. And that’s all I can remember.