The Killing Field

I was on an ancient yellow school bus full of people and we were headed toward Canada, I think. We were running from something and all of us on the bus were marked somehow. Not physically like a tatoo, but there was something abhorent about us...something that our own government, our own
people were trying to destroy. We were escaping on a modern "underground railroad", driving down a barely paved rural road trying to stay as far away from any human population no matter how small. Looking out the window I saw that to the right of us was a fallow, frosted field and to the left was a small creek lined with snow covered stones and bare trees. We really were in the middle of nowhere.

It was the middle of winter, there was no heat in the bus, and we were freezing. We were trying to keep warm by huddling against each other, but it we were all so cold and miserable. I remember looking around at everyone and thinking that we were never going to make it. There was a woman sitting next to me and tears were just rolling down her face. I put my arm around her and pulled her close to me to comfort her. We were together, I think. Lovers. And I was so pissed off because it was just so fucking unfair that our own country was trying to exterminate us like vermin. And no one cared.

We were coming to an intersection when the bus suddenly sped up. We all knew something bad was getting ready to happen. We looked out the dirty, frost covered windows and saw the soldiers moving toward the bus with their weapons pointed our way. The person driving our bus was the father of a young man who was one of "us", whatever "us" was. His son was killed by the government after having been put into some kind of internment camp. I remember the feeling that this man cared very much for us and was part of the "underground railroad", so to speak. I got the impression that he wanted to do for us what he couldn't do for his son. Anyway, he looked back at us and said "Hang on." He mashed the accelerator down as far as he could and tried to turn past the soldiers. The second they realized that he wasn't going to stop, they shot him through the front window.

The bus rolled to a stop on the field side of the road. We all just sat there, stunned. And then the soldiers started screaming at us,

"Move it, move it, move it!!"

About 10 of us filed out of the bus, while the rest of us waited to see what was going to happen. The soldiers grabbed the people that had come out, lined them up, and shot them dead. Well, of course, those of us left on the bus refused to come out, so the soldiers set the bus on fire. Black smoke filled the bus and billowed out the windows. Two or three people ran through the smoke and out of the bus. As soon as they cleared the steps, they were shot. The rest of us tried to pry the windows open, but the bus was so old, they wouldn't budge. We couldn't breath because of the smoke and the fire was moving fast. People were beginning to burn, including me. I used my fist to punch through one and somehow, someway I managed to crawl out. I don't know where my lover was at this point, but I think she was dead.

Once outside of the bus, I was almost fully engulfed in flames. The soldiers were just standing there, watching me burn, and watching the rest of the people inside the bus burn. They didn't try to help. They didn't shoot us to put us out of our misery. They just stood there and watched. I managed to stagger to the stream and roll in the water until the fire was finally out.

I figured that if I layed there long enough, the soldiers would figure that I was dead. It was about 20 minutes when I heard gunshots. Just one here...one there.... I had my eyes closed and was completely still even though the pain was excrutiating. I figured that if I hung in there long enough, the soldiers would go away and I could find help. I heard their boots crunching through the frost covered grass.

"Man, that's one crispy critter."

"Yeah. Fuck, I hate the smell of burnt people."

"Me too. You wanna do it?"

"What for? It's dead, whatever it is."

"Sarge says we gotta put a bullet in all of 'em, just to make sure."

It was like slow motion. I heard them walking closer and felt one nudge me with his foot. I knew I was going to die, so I asked God for forgiveness just as the bullet entered my brain.

Ghosts Of The Anasazi

I'm by myself and I'm on a tour of some Anasazi ruins. I'm with a small group of about four or five people, along with the guide. We're walking along a narrow pathway...to the left is a drop-off and to the right are the various dwellings. The guide directs us into a room and I notice that it's set up similar to a circular ampitheater. It's completely round and in the middle is what looks like a small firepit. Directly above the pit, there is a small hole carved into the ceiling. There looks to be hundreds of years worth of soot around the hole, so I think that it's some type of outlet for the smoke. Into the walls are carved what appear to be three sets of steps...and they go completely around the room, as though people were supposed to sit there and observe whatever was going on in the middle of the room. It seems like this was some kind of gathering place. I notice that the guide is talking, and pointing, but I can't hear him. He's fading away, along with the others in my group. They slowly start to become transluscent until they disappear completely. In their place an ancient shamaness appears...along with 3 other people...two men and one woman. They are dressed in leather and look solid, but there is an otherworldliness about them. The shamaness waves her hand above the firepit and flames shoot up from the ashes. It looks new...and when I say that I mean that it looks as though the fire, the room, the people...are all in the present, and I have been projected into the past somehow. She has a leather bag around her neck. She reaches in and pulls out four fetishes...a hawk, a bear, a mountain lion, and a rabbit. She places them around the firepit in what I assume coincide with the four directions. She then points to each of us and then to the fetish. I am first...I am at what I think is the southern point of the firepit. I sit crosslegged in front of a rabbit fetish. I am feeling ungrateful at this point. I am assigned the rabbit...not the hawk, the bear, or the mountain lion. I am assigned prey and not predator and I am very angry. I have no idea what is going to happen, but the fact that I am assigned the rabbit is, to me, an assault on my personality...who I am and who I want to be. The shamaness ignores me, though, and continues to assign places to the remaining 3 people. Directly in front of me, on the opposite side of the firepit, is a man and he sits in front of the hawk fetish. To my left is the other man, and he sits in front of the bear fetish. To my right is the woman and she sits in front of the mountain lion fetish. The shamaness takes herbs of some sort out of the same leather bag that she removed the fetishes from and sprinkles them into the fire. A large plume of smoke rises up from the fire and fills the small circular room. Somehow, she communicates to us that we are to pick up our fetishes and hold them to us. As we do, we feel a tingling through the stone...like a small electrical charge. When the smoke clears, we see that the fetishes have disappeared and we are holding the real animals.Of course, we are all startled, especially the two holding the bear and mountain lion. I see the woman with the mountain lion look at me and she is afraid. Her totem senses that and jumps from her arms, clearly intent on attacking my rabbit. I stand and turn away from the attack, because I know that I need to protect it. Unfortunately, the rabbit's fear and my own allow her to break free and the mountain lion pounces. She kills my rabbit with one quick bite to the neck and then she sits to devour her meal.... MY TOTEM!!

I remember waking up very angry and not really knowing what to do with it. I think it took me about half a day or so to get it out of my head...the anger part, not the dream as a whole. I really loved the feel of it overall. The end is where I had the issue! You know, I didn't even try to analyze it, because I couldn't really relate it to anything in my life that was going on at the time that would make any sense in regard to the dream. *sigh*