The Dream: a translation

I am on the side of the road -- suburban highway at night with banks swelling up, high, waves pierced with green grass and telephone poles. I am cowering there, in a circle of light, waiting for the action to come. And I see it -- run! The Jeep approaches, drawing nearer, wheels hissing serpentine on the wet tarmac, headlights muffled by some internal anguish. And I fled then, desperate to cross at that very moment when it seemed most imminent, driven by the horrible animal urge to- I collapsed on the opposite bank, chest heaving as I pushed my face further and further into the ground. My ears whistled and rang, echoing cries of an underworld that I had so narrowly escaped. And I lay there for a while, rested safe in the shadow of a pine bush -- safe out of the light, filling my nostrils with the grass.

And so I lay until, slowly, I rose, sensing something on the night wind. I looked across the yawning chasm of road to the faint and artificial sunspot which gleamed like limelight. Its clarity was marred by a dark figure who both shone and consumed all light, like obsidian. A black leopard. But then, o horrors -- it glanced at me and within its face I saw human eyes and then -- a human nose and mouth as well. And it began to stalk.

Quivering and frozen like a useless animal I shrank back into the hillside, desperately hoping to be enveloped as though some mystery lay beneath the dark earth. But there was only time, and dead things, and it seemed no magic could spare me from the beast. And then I remembered the bush -- muffling a scream, I dove behind it as the animal began its graceful ascent from tarmac to hill, my hill, and I realized with horrible astonishment that I was not behind the bush. I looked in all directions in terror -- the bush was suddenly to my left. But I could make out a figure behind the bush -- and in my confusion I slowly understood that it was I. But the beast ignored me, ignored the plain me, ignored the me that was out-of-hiding and exposed, and instead slowly crept up upon the form who was cowering like a hare there among the roots. And I closed my eyes, the silence unbearable, waiting hopelessly to die. But I did not! and slowly I saw it emerge. The man-leopard was no more; emerging from the bush were I, clearly enamored, wrapped in the arms of a man, an Indian, while his brother trailed close behind, almost brushing their backs with his long fingertips as the three strode, moving like ghosts. And the brother stared at me, finger crooked, and I knew he was beckoning for me to follow, to join my half-self and to join him, the half-brother. But I knew, from old stories, that this could not be so. She was not me, and they were not man but demons, come to drag an innocent soul down to hell in an attempt to light their world. They were the demon who is many, they were Legion, they were tricksters that preyed upon the human instincts to abstain from solitude, to move in packs, to trust. They were Legion: they were the tide that turned against you, jealous of all, jealous most specifically of the innocence.

So I did not go with them, but instead sat there, motionless, and watched their bodies fade into the mist as the sky grew slowly lighter.


Fín.