Some people say a dream is a sleeping flower, a hidden lust that haunts your mind. So don’t try so hard to figure out your dream, it will disappear 5 minutes after you wake up.
Really?
So, how is it about me?
I wake up in my dream while my body is sleeping, it feels like switching the TV channel by remote control, just press the button and wink. A dimension-hopping just by closing your eyes and you didn’t know why it kept happening.
I’d traveled in that dimension uncountable times. Met strangers who never noticed me, explored a dead city, walked among the plantations, felt the air, breathed, and so many things. I can feel how was it, seems it happened before and I was the main cast.
Peoples called it déja vu.
Other people called it visions.
But Google called it reincarnation
I forgot when it began, I had a continuous dream like a serial movie, a past period with a vintage filter, seriously it was a vintage filter on my eyes. It’s always the same, same area, same building, same sensations, and same feelings. Soon after woke up I remembered all those things, more than 5 minutes, and got tired.
***
I’d dreamt saw old Bandung city lights from one of Lembang hills, it was a beautiful view from the top, sparkling in the dark. I wasn’t alone, I was there with a blurry dashing man and I can’t remember how his face was.
In the twilight, we walk on a path among the big grass of fertile land, pass the small wood bridge, and enter a small building like a medical cube. He said it was a lab, I don’t know what kind of lab, maybe it is an architect’s lab because I found a curve ruler on his desk and craftmanship tools on the walls.
Who knows?
I remember seeing the sparkling light appear from the windows. After dark, we went closer to the hill, breaking through the big grass that blocked our way. He held my hand and pointed to an under-constructed building near the lab, telling me that building was Boscha.
When we reached the peak, he was standing beside me and pointing to the sparkling light that I saw from the windows, telling me that it was a Bandung city lights view in the night. I can’t describe how beautiful it is, I can see the whole Bandung like a bowl of lamps and touch the lights as my own.
The sky full of stars is Bandung City’s light reflection.
Then. He asked me to wait in the lab and promised would send someone to pick me up, I saw him leaving on the lab door into the woods. I can hear the chaos of battle but never know when it begins or how it ends. I had been waiting for a long time, until one day an old man in Javanese clothes with his rusty wood cart came to me.
I looked around and realized the lab was broken, seems it had been left for a long time, full of mess and dust. The grass grew higher and wilder, the bush changed the path and the weather became dry. That man never saw me.
Sometimes I saw him peeking up at me from the woods, I could hear his white horse step when he stayed around. He always disappeared every time I tried to get closer.
***
I was standing at the intersection, trying to decide which path I should choose. Should I go to the right? Should I go to the left? I can see a life across the cliff in front of me…
This morning I rode a bicycle with my friend among the tea plantations, and we met other groups at the meeting point. They are older than us, and some of those men used hats to cover their heads and wore semi-formal suits, even wearing vests and pocket watches like they went to church before.
It’s a serious journey, we don’t talk or joke as usual. The air blew my skirt and waved my lace bow, my friends smiled and tried to go ahead, and raced in silently. We ride from one hill to another hill, going up and going down, passing the river, and climbing a little.
We arrived at the hidden site, isolated in the middle of plantations and woods. They told me it’s a place for ill people. I can see many people around here, most of them are old people, walking wobbly and coughing every time, but the rest of them are laughing or prattling like crazy.
On the other side, I found an glasses old man painting on his canvas, whistling a song that I don’t know. The old couples are visited by their relatives and decide to sit on the mat in a garden center, they are happy and satisfied. The loneliest man is the quietest, he just stares across the fences.
Some women took responsibility for their daily needs, they were not maids or nurses, they were volunteers. There was a woman asked me to sit at the dining table, she served a cup of tea and a few biscuits. This site feels like home, there is a porch for spending afternoon tea and a rocking chair if you want, an open kitchen so you can see the landscape while eating meals, and a nice room in a wooden cottage.
I do not see a child here, maybe this place is just for adults. Actually, it is a perfect place to retire or calm down. Despite the fact, this place is isolated in the middle of plantations and woods.
I still can remember how happy they were there…
***
The door opened when I came, warming me nicely. Finally… I’m going to this ball.
I met my friends that I had been looking for a few minutes before, they were wearing pretty dresses and beautiful as me. After tasting a cookie and drinking a little, we went upstairs to get a wider view of this ball.
I can see the whole picture of this ball. Men and women danced following the rhythm in the dance hall, they looked gorgeous. A manner man in a suit and neat hair, and a beautiful woman in a charming dress and stylish hairdo are laughing at their dance. The older couple beside them is more attractive, they are dancing energetically and making a space. The rest are dancing happily, seems this is their happiest moment.
The band is playing music that cheers up the ball. On the other side, there a people who talking seriously, some of them are nervous, maybe they are talking about business nowadays. The women’s group gossiped and shared about the newest hat design, or showed off the jewelry on her body and told everyone it was a gift from her husband’s business trip.
The older boys kept an eye on and stared at a girl who was smiling behind the feathers fan, they knew each other but to shy to talk in front of people. The waiters walk around the hall offering a drink or cookies.
Suddenly, there is a huge chaos in the main entrance. The guards tried to hold back, but I think it was not working, the men were screaming and the women cried anxiously. We are under attack. I open the glass door and see tiny soldiers coming to our buildings, they are coming from everywhere.
This is my first time seeing them, I thought they were a kid but their behaviors weren’t. We were so panicked, people ran and got caught everywhere, the glass was broken and the cookies fell on the floors. We were lucky to meet a man who brought us into a room and locked us inside, he told us to wait for our soldiers to come and bear down the enemy.
I hear our soldier’s command voice and peek a little from the curtains, they are there… armed and ready for the worst. We are trapped in the battle for a while. My friends start to cry and pray because it’s the best thing we can do.
The battle voice is slowing down, quiet until you can hear yours breathe. We were waiting when the door hit hard. That man opened the glass door which is linked to the porch, and he asked us to leave by going down the pipe, we didn’t have a choice.
I climbed the pipe rashly trying not to slip my shoes or my dress on it. The view is so awful, many people die and are bloody,. I don’t know which side whom winning this battle. I was so shocked when I saw a new wave of tiny soldiers come toward our buildings, my shoes slipped on my dress and I ended up hitting the ground hard.
I can hear my friends crying anxiously, I can hear that man fighting with someone over the door, I can hear the tiny soldier’s voice command with strange language and accent. I must run. I’ll try my best to get up and run, I run so fast, fast and fast.
The more I faster, the more I see that (many) tiny soldiers.
***
That is a little bit of my dream, a weird dream, but I believe it’s not just a dream. Sometimes I dreamt about the other side of my dream setting area, exactly and real. I can show you… Some people think I’m influenced by Risa Sarasvati’s books when I told them this, they even took those books because worrying about me.
The fact is that dream happened before I read the book.
The first time I realized this was when I visited the building, I was attending a fashion exhibition at that time. That night, there is a little spark burst on me when I saw the building in my dream. I recognized the hall and the pillar when came in, I found the stairs and the glass window, it was still as beautiful as I had seen before. I can’t focus on the exhibition because distracted by it. It is real.
Actually, I always had sad feelings when visiting some places, streets, or parks. Seems I lived there before. because of that, I always avoid passing those. I don’t want to be buried in other’s life. IYKWIM.
