Oct 31, 2006

It started out with me, sitting at my computer, reading bios on some authors. I came across a more interactive site that almost made a movie out of the screen when you'd mouse over one of the authors. There were three people standing out in the middle of nowhere, one man and two women. Mousing over them, the man stepped to the front, and I found myself reading about Larry McMurtry.

Interesting, ok. Next.

Mousing over them again, he stepped back and looked off into the distance. The woman in the middle stepped forward. She was a tall woman, broad shouldered, with a no-nonsense attitude. She had a couple pennames she wrote under, but none I was familiar with.

Next.

With the next mouse-over, the two I'd already read about linked arms and walked off a bit, and the third woman stepped forward, but kept looking over her shoulder at the landscape behind her. Reading her bio, it sounded very familiar. Hmm... She writes under a couple pennames, is 3/4 Cherokee and 1/4 white (in reality I'm not, but apparently in my dream I was... *shrug* I dunno!).... Wait a sec! One of the pennnames she uses! 5 Feathers Woman! Hey, that's me!

All of a sudden, I'm not at my computer anymore, but I'm *her*, the woman that was on my computer screen!

I look around, enjoying the sweet smells of earth, clean air, grasses, horses... I notice that much of my tribe is here, and also a large number of white men. I don't worry about it, I'm too busy enjoying nature.

A soft breeze plays with my waist-lenght black hair. (Mine is actually kinda dark blonde, and about shoulder length - in other words, it's me in the dream, but it isn't *me*.) I laugh, and the breeze challenges me to a race.

I take off, running lightly in my beaded and fringed dress and bare feet. I can hardly stand it, I'm so happy.

I hear yelling behind me. The white men are being sent to bring me back. Good luck, guys. You'll never catch me!

I dart up and down hills, keeping a steady pace. I'm running for the sheer joy of it, and am enjoying it even more because those guys behind me have no hope of catching me unless something crazy happens.

As I'm running, I notice that ahead of me is a huge building. I don't have a choice, I have to run in. The men follow behind me, but with their respect of social graces, slow to a fast walk. I don't worry about that. I want to stay ahead of them, and get back outside.

I dart through a set of swinging double doors and find myself in a warehouse area, boxes everywhere, and no exits in sight. But then I see a flight of stairs! Perfect! Except they're behind a huge stack of these cardboard boxes with a red stripe labeled "REPACK". Hmm.... Going closer, I notice that there's actually just enough room for me to slip between the railing and the boxes. Not enough for the men behind me, which makes it even better.

I scamper up the stairs, barely noticing that the open grid pattern of the metal steps is hurting my feet. The men start trying to coax me back down, while pulling boxes from the stack at the base of the stairs. I laugh, and run higher.

At the top of the stairs there's a walkway to the left, wall on the right. Ok, I know which way I'm going. Blast! It's a dead end! The men notice and start laughing... Until they get yelled at by someone in charge of the warehouse. They go back through the double doors, which gives me a chance to slip under the railing, jump to a platform just a bit away from where I am and scramble up a ladder to the top level of the warehouse.

The men come back in just in time to see me clearing the top of the ladder. They immediately start working on getting up there as fast as they can. I dart through the doors in front of me and stop.

There's a long hallway going to either side of me. In front of me are two glass doors with 4 glass panels on either side. Outside I can see a street and a park area across it. I hear the men coming, so I have to hurry and decide. They're going to expect me to run straight ahead, so I slip to the left and duck into a jog in wall, right next to a water fountain.

I freeze just as they burst out of the doors, pause, and run out to the sidewalk, stopping at the curb to look left and right. As they run across the street to check out the park, I take a drink and skip down the hallway to a door I can see at the other end.

Once there, I find a young man tending the shrubs outside and ask if there's a way to the lower level without going through the warehouse. He smiles and shows me a curving staircase that leads down and behind the building. I thank him and trip lightly down the steps. At the bottom, I start running again. This time, back towards my people, but not as though I'm racing the wind.

As I get out on the grassland again, I notice the men walking slowly, dejectedly ahead of me. They're talking about how much trouble they're gonna be in since they don't have me with them. I chuckle quietly and duck around the base of a hill and run, racing the wind, to get back to camp well ahead of them.

I get back and duck into camp without being seen. I find my husband, sleeping, and nudge him a bit. He wakes enough to smile and tuck me under his arm and blankets.

Just as we've drifted off to sleep, we hear yelling. The white men come over to him, not noticing me. He raises his head and gives them a thunderous look, and then looks down at me, with my innocent expression and twinkling eyes. His eyes sparkle back at me as we share the joke I've played on the men. They grumble and stalk off. There's nothing they can do, because as they've all seen, I was sleeping in camp. It couldn't have been me they were chasing. With a quiet chuckle, we settle back down to sleep under the blanket and stars.