Premonition or Dream?

5:15am April 14th, 2009: Midwestern United States


My eyes spring open as I let out a breath of despair. My body shivers in a cold sweat and I stare at the ceiling. “Waa.” [Silence] “Waa,” my youngest son calls for me. Forcing myself to sit up, I look towards the night stand and strain to see the clock. [5:15am]



I look to my right and see my girlfriend (former relationship/mother of my youngest son) curled in a ball; sleeping oblivious to the world. “Waa,” he calls for me. “I need to get up. Get up,” I command myself. I take a deep breath, and wrap my arms around my body. I’m clammy, but I don’t feel sick. I try to blink myself into awareness. “Waa.”



I press my palms into the mattress and swing my legs off the side of the bed. They move like their in casts, and my feet drop to the floor [Thud]…and I sit there. “Waa.” My skin stings as the sweat dries. I stand up and sway as I recollect the jolt that woke me…chaos. “Waa.”



I stumble clumsily through the hallway on into the kitchen and fumble for a bottle. I unscrew the nipple, set them down obnoxiously and retrieve the milk from the fridge. “4 ounces,” I say aloud, and re-screw the nipple. “Waa.” “Coming Son, be patient, I’m coming,” I whisper head of me.



I walk into my son’s bedroom and notice the darkness. The sun hasn’t risen yet, and my eyes are slow to adjust. He’s sitting upright in his crib, with a little hand reaching up to me, but those little fingers aren’t wanting me…they’re welcoming the bottle in my hand. He coos as he grips the bottle, falling back into the bed and then pulls his whobbie close to him.



“Why weren’t you there? Where was your brother? Where was my oldest son?” I think to myself. My mind still shadowy from sleep, I tap on the railing lightly as if to sooth my son, but really it’s to sooth myself; I turn from his room.



“My job is done,” I croak out hoarsely and pace back to my side of the bed. I slither under the blankets and retch from discomfort. The blanket is damp…and cold. I grunt my annoyance and maneuver some of girlfriend’s warm covers over myself.



I fumbled and stumbled, and froze, and pushed myself out of bed to care for my boy, and now I’m wide awake. [Sighs] I lie on my left side, my back thieving girlfriend’s warmth, and try to place myself in the nightmare that woke me.



It was far beyond dusk, and I couldn’t see the moon in a virtually cloudless desert sky. There were mountains in the distant North and the Eastern horizon was clear. I paid no attention to the West, or to the South, I just stared east and studied the flat plains of a desert spotted with flora.



There was a building a few yards behind me; an old airplane hangar; metallic and rusty in color. A tall, thin girl with long dark hair and a tan complexion was standing a few feet in front of its open bay door. To my sides were two men around my age; mid thirties; but in this dream I think I was older than them. Both tall, slender, and clean cut; geekish and wholesome. I knew them, but didn’t recognize them, and couldn’t make out any of their features.



I could sense others behind me…somewhere in the lightless hanger, but couldn’t see them, and didn’t care to look. I knew them, or…I knew of them. I couldn’t feel the climate; couldn’t feel a chill, or any heat. I couldn’t smell the open air, and I had no concept of time or date, only that it was night.




Something in the sky streaked overhead from the West to the East and left a hazy trail behind it. I looked up and saw a few more streaks of red and orange. At first I didn’t understand what I was looking at, but then I recognized what it was; a meteor storm. I had never witnessed one in person but I’d seen them in photographs and on television.



My companions must have noticed the phenomenon at the same time I did. They became antsy and excited, as if they expected the light show. They hopped excitedly for a moment and half challenged each other to investigate it. I didn’t know how I knew these men, but found myself wondering if they were astronomers or scientists of a similar collar.



Suddenly the night sky lit up as a barrage of meteors and their tails crossed over head and vanished into the horizon. My company left me running in the direction of the onslaught; towards the East. I heard an anxious commotion behind me and wondered if I was part of some scientific gathering to witness this celestial event...but something told me I wasn’t. Something inside of me was fearful, and I didn’t know why.



I stepped backward cautiously and six meteors streaked overhead. Their tails were different now; more like lasers cutting through atmosphere, and I saw it. I saw a mass that couldn’t have been a meteor; maybe a comet, but it’s high, too high. It’s bigger then a comet…”Is that an asteroid,” I thought to myself.



There wasn’t a tail like the others, and it crossed the night’s sky from the West to the East but didn’t vanish, instead…its fiery glow ended and then burst into a bright yellow brilliance; flickering out. A millisecond more and it exploded into an hour glass of light reaching to unimaginable heights far above the horizon; up into the Heavens.



Fear enveloped me and I panicked, almost to tears. I started stepping backward and reaching behind me for the girl’s hand, and grasped it. I turned toward the hanger and started to sprint and stopped suddenly. People were screaming from inside the building; from a stairway that appears to lead into a basement.



I craned my neck to the east and saw flicking flames in the distance and a billowing smoke. The entire horizon was lined with a mountain high wave of cloud resembling a volcanoes pyroclastic flow. Terror choked me and I staggered into the darkened hanger only to discover the screams faded into frantic warnings, “it broke through…run!”




I looked towards the voices and the same cloud was billowing out of the stairway and swallowing everyone trying to escape its pursuit. I looked at the girl and saw terror in her eyes. I turned back to the east…and woke up. That’s the last thing I remember.



I started to drift off into sleep and as I did 2012 kept repeating in my head; 2012, 2012, 2012… I woke up in the early afternoon, just after 10:00am. I saw my girlfriend carrying the laundry bin and our son  chasing after her in a giggle.




It’s Tuesday and my oldest son's with his mother until the weekend. It’s just the three of us for now. I pried myself out of bed and made for the coffee maker; my priorities. I stood with a sway and watched it brew. Added two scoops of sugar, a French Vanilla creamer; stirred it…and stepped outside for my morning cigarette.



Its cold for April, maybe 30 degrees at most, and the wind feels like razor blades. I smoked, and sipped on my coffee. I must have looked like a zombie. My hair was a frizzy mess, my clothes mismatched, and I’m sure my facial expression was nothing more than droopy.



I thought of my dream. “What did it mean,” I thought to myself. I’m a notorious skeptic and laugh off anything floating outside of the boundaries of deductive reasoning and logic. If it an explanation doesn’t materialize after using the scientific method then it’s written off as a fluke or a hoax, or an overactive imagination. If something falls outside of the laws of physics it does-not-exist.



“What is a dream,” I ask myself as I burn through a cigarette.



-Thomas aka SecretCog