Dream Whispers

Ron Koppelberger

Dream Whispers

He was pushing on to the melting point, across the abyss of sleep and delicate mists. Forward momentum, he had forward momentum and the spirit guides were dust and simple asylum, they were the distance between dreams and nightmares, he slept and he dreamed. Smokey layers of dust coated his eyes and the union of soul bidden to the realms of forever played with the whispers of what looked to be a tattered tangle of weeds. Goldenrod in the midst of a forest copse, dandelions for the spirit of youth and something dark, dangerous and sly.
Echos of wild eternity filled his sleeping mind with the tangle of weeds and the shadow that lay over them, was it a ghost within a dream or was it a portent of what might be ash, ash and evil, dark and feeling scarlet like the flames of an arriving face, the face of unbidden nightmares calling to him…..the flames of yesterday, the flames of tomorrow and forever, calling to his unsaid emotions, the turmoil of searching souls. He sat next to the weeds and a plume of gray flame appeared beneath the Goldenrod, feeding the substance of the bloom. The sky revolved and the air hummed with the wild suggestion of music, drums insistent and rolling through the air in waves of rhythmic shadow. He sat and listened and the weed grew, his eyes watered and he cried in silent will to the secret, what was the embracing need, to do harm, to go with the wind, to find oblivion, he fought the weed and turned to the south away, to far horizons harboring the bloom of mercy and gentle rivers in flux. He turned to the approaching dawn, still dreaming, ignoring the gray flicker of light behind him, he would find salvation for his waking passions and his promise. The light fell to a dull rush of shadow and shadow as the dream began to fade to a distant landscape and the will, the perfect attentions of dusk and early morning wont, pulled him up from the bottom of the well in great heaving gasps and suspiring breaths.
He awoke to the sound of dogs barking and Eden’s singing rapture. What of the dream, dark dangerous and needing his blood. He looked ahead to the rest of the day and saw sunshine, the blessings of a new day and the world as it could be. The dream forgotten he moved on with his day in ceaseless faith, nevertheless he would remember the gray fire and those shadows that might be loosed into the light someday and he knew the wont, the secret scent of Goldenrod denied, this alone would drive him to the perfumes of what offered salvation.