Last night I awoke from one of my extremely detailed dreams. I was standing on a small New England, WPA* built, steel girder and wooden decked back road bridge.
Green painted, probably hundreds of coats from many years of bored highway workers wearing tee shirts, smoking cigarettes and pouring on paint. Large round rivet heads detailing expanse, providing an angular and dimensional ‘feel’ to my vision during the dream. The rivet heads were prominent in sensory input during the dream. Funny how lines and details are prominent in only some of my dreams, usually it is the small, microscopic areas in cement or red bricks that seem featured. I can feel these prominent features more than see them, they are tactile.
Mist and cold air rose from the small river, up over the confining girder rails. Thick wooden road floor on the bottom, crisscrossing four inch slats of steel enclosed the side distance between the wood floor and the top, heavy girder rail.
I looked over the rail, could see tangled trees and growth that had probably been realigned due to ice storms and mud which loosened the river banks. Brambles and thick vegetation filled the bank area. Likely filled with blackberries every year.
Almost hidden in the extremely detailed growth was a automobile. It was likely an early forties model. I can say that because of the parabolic curve of the roof line, curved as an iron worker might make – not streamlined as a later fifties scientific engineer would produce. Also, the steering wheel was a dead give-away for defining the age of the car. Ivory color, large scalloped bumps for grip, and very large to compensate for the lack of power-steering that early heavy cars had. Dark color paint and ribbed, corduroy-like gray upholstery. Round fenders with what seemed larger than normal headlights. They were not casting light of course.
The car had at some point in time slid down the embankment for whatever reason. Saplings had encased it to some degree, making it a not obvious feature if one hadn’t particularly focused on the spot. Wedged between the windshield and the area where people usually placed Saint Christopher medals was a dead cat. Its face redefined to fit the curve of the glass. Translucent light red and yellowish Jackson Pollack shaped dried cat blood further defined the space that the cat had now become. Eyes wide open, whiskers spanned out, the flesh of the mouth area tightened and receding a bit, exposing the teeth in an abnormal way. Reddish and white fur still there, with the alternating colors almost undulating between them as things sometimes do in my dreams.
I think I’ve described it fairly well with few words, but the essence of the dream, the feelings and experience, cannot be described with words. You had to be there to know more about the dream; intensity and detail are heavy duty in lots of my dreams.
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* WPA was an American Government program to create jobs in the 1930′s, among the various initiatives were bridges. Some 124,031 were constructed, repaired, or improved.
