Turbulent sleep and vivid nightmares

Oh wow. I am dead tired. And do you know what I just did? I slept.

It’s so weird how I don’t feel refreshed even after my naps and 8-hour sleep, and how I keep having all these weird dreams whenever I go to bed. I think I just had a dream that someone wanted me dead, and I ran like crazy and managed to lose him or her when I went through a crowd. It was outdoors at night and I ended up at a huge construction site, and there was some sort of tricycle strike going on and I couldn’t get a ride anywhere. My cellphone made me jump up 10 feet high and jolted me back into reality when I received a message from someone. Was I relieved to join the world of the living again.

This afternoon’s dream was only a little bit better compared to last night’s. Last night’s dream has to be the freakiest and most vivid dream I’ve ever had. I dreamt about the end of the world as it happened to me.

I was a dormer in Eliazo when the end of the world came. The first sign of it happening was some sort of deadly disease that involved muscle pain, falling hair, and the loss of the ability to see in color. I knew I had the disease when the colors around me started to fade. I panicked and ran home, all the way home to Makati. (As I ran, I think I might have contracted Spiderman-like abilities and killed off a few demons, but I don’t remember this part too well.) Upon reaching the house, I learned that my parents had the disease as well. The TV was on and for some reason we only had two channels, the news and ESPN. I asked my mom, “Are we going to die?” And when she said yes, I felt afraid. Really afraid. But I didn’t freak out or anything; I just stood there and contemplated what it was like to be truly doomed to die.

I decided to go to the sanctuary of my room and meditate, but not before screaming at my sister for wearing my new white dragon shirt and stretching it in the process (she’s younger but taller than me). I’m not sure why we had to argue about a petty thing like this even though the world was about to end, but we were. I made her change into something else and she complied, stomping off. Which was unusual because she hardly ever does anything I tell her to. Anyway, when she finally wore something else, I went inside my room. The blinds were drawn, the lights were off, and the room was cold because it’s been a while since the sun’s rays have penetrated through the blinds. I sat on my bed and meditated. For an hour I talked to God and asked him forgiveness for my sins and protection for those I love.

When I emerged from the darkness of my room, my parents were watching TV. I then learned that my parents’ disease took a turn for the worst. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but they told me they wanted to rest, and so I helped them get on the dining table. Why I didn’t lead them to their bedroom, I don’t know. My mom laid down first, and then my dad went beside her, but his foot was to her head and vice versa. Because their eyes were becoming sensitive to the sun, they asked me to blindfold them. My sister and I did this; my mom with a big handkerchief, my dad with one those things that come free in hotels, I don’t know what you call them.

Then I went back in the room to use my sister’s laptop to check my e-mail. I was scrolling down my inbox, indiscrimminantly deleting junk mail, when I came across two e-mails from God. In the first, He told me He took my mother’s soul. In the second, He said He took my dad’s. I ran out of the room to check on my parents, and I was shaking their shoulders and shouting, “Wake up! Wake up!” But they wouldn’t. In my panic, I yanked my dad’s blindfold away from his face and his lifeless eyes stared back at me. I screamed. I cried. And screamed. My sister came rushing out of whatever room she was in to find out what was wrong, and I screamed, “They’re dead! They’re dead!” She started freaking out too, and I rested my head on the table and sobbed and said how sorry I was for all the wrong things I have done.

The ringing phone woke me up. I tried to fumble for it with my eyes closed but when I couldn’t locate it with my hand, I opened my eyes. Two tears went rolling down my cheek.