email463.xml

email463.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-08-20

Last night I had a dream that my parents were divorced and I was living in the house I grew up in with my dad and his new wife. My dad told me that he and his wife were part of a terrorist organization that was staging an attack on November 11 at 4PM that would be far more destructive than what happened on September 11. He said it would include biological warfare as well as hijacked airplanes. He gave me a vial of pills and told me to take one so that I would be protected against Anthrax. He also told me that he and his wife would be killed if they ever found out what he had told me.

Then I woke up. I must have been whimpering because Glenn asked me if I was okay. "Just a bad dream." I said. "About what?" he asked. "People killing people," I murmured, and fell back asleep. Two nights ago I'd had a dream about finding a mutiliated dead body in a public bathroom, so the dream about my father seemed tame.

But then the dream continued. I dreamt that it was November 11 and Glenn and I were sitting in my bedroom watching a movie. It was ET, I think, except Sally Field was in it. I kept watching the clock to see how much time we had left until 4PM. I guess I was hoping nothing would happen. My dad and his wife were scurrying around the house but I'm not sure what they were doing. Then 4PM came. I heard an airplane flying overhead so I looked out the window. Above me it did a complete U-turn and started flying the other way. "It's happening," I said frantically to Glenn. We each took a pill and started gathering our things together to make a run for it. Warm clothes, running shoes, contact lens solution, my glasses. I ran into the kitchen and opened every can of cat food we had, hoping that the cats would be able to live for a while without us, if we could ever come back to get them. Then I started piling potatoes into my Manhattan Portage bag.

I wanted to take with me some type of personal trinket and so I ran back into my bedroom to look for my "pocket angel," which, in real life, is a pewter coin-shaped trinket with an angel carved onto it. Glenn gave it to me. In the dream I couldn't find it and I realized I had left it at work. In real life I do keep it at work. Glenn was at the car out in front, quickly loading it up. It occurred to us that we should have stocked up on water and gotten a full tank of gas. He came back inside and asked my father how we were supposed to flee if the highways would be jammed. My dad said solemnly, "There's going to be a pause, and then we're [meaning he and his wife]going to leave. I'll let you know when the time comes."

Then I woke up again. I shook Glenn until he woke up too, and then I started crying and I told him about the whole dream.

He said, "Don't worry, it's just a dream."
I said, "Kind of."
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "People really do fly airplanes into buildings."

I managed to fall asleep again and this time Glenn and I were in a different house, trying to escape the terrorist attacks. I was trying to empty the contents of the medicine cabinet into my bag and Glenn was putting water out for the cats to drink. I don't know what my preoccupation with the cats was all about. We had a full tank of gas this time and a full gas can in the trunk for when that ran out. We were going to drive to Iowa on the back roads and try to make it to my grandmother's house right across the Mississippi, and then continue on to Des Moines to meet up with one of Glenn's friends. I don't know if we ever made it or not. I woke up before that.

A

November 6, 2001