MMagistract2
Thread
One night I had a dream. In the dream I was walking down an unfamiliar, fairly crowded city sidewalk. From a distance I saw a man with pale skin, reddish hair, and glazed eyes. He was covered in bleeding sores, and wandering in a daze. I stared straight ahead and passed quickly. But some moments later, I realized he had approached me from my blind side, and was inches from me, smiling and bleeding. He asked me, now grinning, to find him a doctor. I ran, screaming for help and for a doctor, but all the other people were far away. The dream ended, I bolted upright in bed, I waited for my heart rate to drop, end of story. A few days later, I had a long airport layover in Athens, Greece. I decided to take a bus into town, walk around, and see the sights. After a while I wandered away from the tourist crowds and gift shops and started checking out some junk stores and thrift shops. Then, on the sidewalk ahead of me, I saw him: reddish hair, pale skin, shuffling along, wearing nothing but a pair of filthy cargo shorts, and covered in bleeding sores. I stopped, turned, and jogged calmly (though I didn't feel calm) across the busy street, trying not to draw attention to myself. I weaved through the little streets, ending up about a quarter mile perpendicular to the guy's shuffling, shambling trajectory, trying to get as far from him as possible before I stopped to look around me again. Then after chiding myself – poor guy probably needed some help! – I more or less forgot about him. So I'm strolling along now, looking in the windows of vintage shops. And I feel a kind of displacement, or twinge, like just before something hits you in the head. I turn my head slightly, and his bleeding face is inches from mine. It's the guy from before, with the filthy cargo pants. He is not smiling – he just looks dazed, his eyes wandering off to the side. But he is standing so close to me that his dazed, absent expression has a pointed, knowing aura. This time, I actually ran.