Dreaming…

It’s late afternoon and I’m running in a gathering storm. Not a beautiful, dramatic storm, come to freshen the air and cleanse the land but an evil, brooding storm, full of threat and menace.

I must climb the hill. The only shelter that there is is at the top of the hill. The first spatters of a cold, clinging rain lash against my face as the wind’s icy tendrils slip around me but I’m nearly at the top of the hill. Even though it’s now dusk, it doesn’t matter. I’m nearly at the top of the hill and there’s shelter there, under the tree.

No matter how fast I run through over the slippery grass the tree suddenly looks very distant. It can’t be far away surely. It seemed so close. I lower my head and run faster. Fast as I can, almost weeping with the effort and the fear of the storm.

Suddenly, simultaneously, a low rumble of thunder like a convulsion in the Earth shakes me to my soul and lightning flashes. By the corrupt, ghastly light of the storm I see the tree silhouetted. Not safe. Dark, gaunt, reaching toward me with branches as bare and dry as skeletal fingers, cracking and snapping with contempt and loathing……