8:16 a.m. - 2023-03-23
bee-dream
I will, on occasion, jot down the more linear/cogent plot-lines of my dreams upon awakening. Unfortunately this isn't one of those. This one hung beautifully in my morning memory though, as ethereal and miraculous as a jellyfish in open water. So reading back over my recollection now is like finding that same jellyfish washed ashore; a tangled, desiccated, mess. Apologies.
~ ~ ~
I dreamt of Hawaii last night, but I wasn't back in High School. This dream was set later, after I'd returned. There were multiple, nebulous storylines involved, but they were all predicated by the same narrative device: the young woman featured in each vignette was introduced in the arms of her parents, limp and borne between them like Jesus carried down from the cross. Even the levitating girl made her entrance thus; for it seems her elderly parents too could levitate. Anyway, I recall the device better than the narrative now, so let me describe instead the last detail I remember clearly...the aircraft.My girlfriend was visiting and we were scheduled to catch an inter-island flight, but we were running late. Fortunately this island was small (Molokai-ish), and there was no airport to hassle with; only a short runway extending straight-out into the water from a tiny beach. Despite the takeoff/landing limitations this should have imposed, the aircraft was massive. It looked like an old C-47 troop-transport plane, and passengers loaded-in through a big cargo door on the aft-end of the fuselage. My girlfriend and I raced down the beach and through this door as they began to raise it...
The military motif extended to the interior: seats were cramped and cushion-less, every surface was metallic and painted O.D. green, fluorescent lights flickered erratically overhead. But it was the windows that agitated me. Ours were blacked-out. And I mean...this was scenic Hawaii, and my girlfriend was visiting. So as the plane took off I began desperately searching each row for a seat that might afford her a view.
“Why don't you try up front?” a faceless passenger suggested.
We made our way down that drab and narrow aisle and, as we stepped into a bright, open space five-times as wide, it felt as if we'd entered a ballroom from a servant's passage...or stumbled upon the lido deck after a night spent trapped in stowage. There were long rows of seats in the room's center, facing a wall of windows with clouds and blue sky beyond. There was a cocktail lounge to your left as you entered; an area designated by glass partitions and a striking difference in color-scheme*. The whole place was vibrant with “vintage” design...elaborately patterned carpet and upholstery, carved koa woodwork and cast-resin curves. This felt more like a luxury ferry than a plane. A comparison underscored by the glass door towards the front. The one that opened onto the deck.
It was a small deck, two tiny tables and some chairs (this was an airplane, after all). But the novelty of an airborne deck was irresistible. I suggested we check it out.
“Don't you think it'll be too windy?”
Did my girlfriend not understand dream-physics? Or was she thinking about the strong on-shore breeze back on the beach, the one pushing those battered coconut palms around... In any case I deferred. We took our comfortable seats inside, and that's when I spotted the bee on the carpet. He was doing that confused bee-dance that happens when they're exhausted or lost, so I picked him up.
“Hey little flier, why are you catching a flight?”, I thought as I folded my hand around him. That's when I woke up...
...from the dream anyway. I was conscious of being back, alone again in my miserable little room set hard against the hill. Conscious too that the one thing that tempers my existence in this (self-imposed) purgatory, the fact that I can always step outside and soak up the natural beauty of the place, is denied me now by the effects of this pernicious drought. Conscious that “my” clear-running creek is reduced to a series of mud-holes, that the walnut trees have yet to leaf and that the oak-blight is taking advantage of its thirst-weakened victims. That the plum flowers made a halfhearted attempt this year but are already falling from the branch.
But I was still half-asleep enough to hope that maybe, if I set it loose, the dream-bee I'd brought back with me would find a flower. And that it could pollinate this dying landscape with some lush measure of the tropical paradise I'd just left. I opened my hand and woke up again.
* The lounge was green, savoy-blue and marigold; with a very late-50's parabola-print décor. The main cabin was fuchsia, deep violet and burnt orange...which just happen to be the Hawaiian Airlines colors.
