July 14, 2002

Remember when I said my aunt was finally going to take me out for a walk? She forgot to mention that the walk was actually a steady, nearly one-hour walk uphill. I took a bike along for the ride down, but I still had to push the damn thing up there. She also told me to wear a sweater, despite the hot weather, because it was going to be windy. So there I was, dragging this big-ass bike up the mountain with them, dying in the heat, and dying with the altitude� I�ve never been an active girl, just did what I needed to get by. My relatives cooped me up in their apartment with nothing to do for nearly a week and then decided to force me up a mountain in the hot weather. Even better, I had nothing in my stomach except for some yogurt, because no one bothers to cook anything until 7-8 p.m. Let me tell you, I was dying. A little over a half-hour up the mountain, I couldn�t go any further, my throat was closing up on me. We stopped and rested, and I nearly hyperventilated. My aunt said it was from being so high up in the mountains, I think she mentioned we were 1,800 freaking METERS in the air. I�ve lived all my life at sea level; my poor lungs aren�t made to be tough like Swiss people! The yogurt in my system wasn�t helping much either. By the time we got up to that damned restaurant, I was ready to collapse. Getting down the mountain on the bike took only five minutes, and a car nearly hit me on the way. My aunt wants us to go for another walk today, but she�ll be lucky if she can pull me out of my pj�s. Screw that.

I didn�t get to go into the city yesterday, it was raining too hard. There was a thunderstorm brewing, so big that it lasted the whole night, and part of the morning as well. I�ve never been so afraid of a thunderstorm as then� it sounded like it was right outside the window, the lightning illuminating the whole room. By the time it was over, the clouds were sitting right down in the valley� no wonder I couldn�t breathe the other day!

That same night, I had a really bad nightmare� it�s right up there with the worst of them. I�ll warn you now, it�s pretty graphic (parts of it anyway). I was sleeping in my bed, snug as a bug with my doggie sleeping next to me, and all of a sudden I�m pulled out of my sleep by this deafening noise. Even though I was in deep sleep, it practically scared the hell out of me (because I�d been woken up in my dream, I was thinking everything else was real). I looked at my clock, 7:38 a.m. I went out in the living room to see what happened, and I saw my sister, with bits of flesh on her shirt and spattered in blood. I wondered, �What the hell is going on?� and I looked around. My dad was lying on the floor, with blood practically soaking his leg. I couldn�t see his upper body, it was hidden from view. I started freaking out, thinking he�d shot himself (freaking out like the time I dreamed he�d hanged himself)� hell, there was even clotted blood on my side. Then I looked out in the hall, and scattered on the floor were pieces of skull, stained in scarlet red. It all hit me� my mother had blown her brains out (but how did blood get on all of us, in different parts of the house?). I didn�t freak out, I didn�t scream. But I couldn�t bring myself to look in her room and find her either, not a chance in hell. I pictured it in my mind; my mother slumped over the edge of the bed, her head collapsed with a blank look on her face. I went back in my room and tried to process everything that had just happened� by the time I got back out, my dad was on his hands and knees cleaning up the mess. I knew the police would be coming, so why the hell was he trying to clean up? They did indeed come by, asking all sorts of questions, all the while I was dazed out of my mind. I started to feel funny, like something else awful was going to happen; to me. Then I got a phone call, the man on the other side was telling me that he knew where I lived and that he was going to kill me. Time to freak out! I couldn�t take this shit, so I left the house. I walked around the neighborhood, going nowhere in particular. I sat down on some bleachers, and then saw a few people lingering around. Then I spotted my mother, running away from men with guns. They were trying to shoot her down, what the hell was going on? My mother had just shot herself in our house! I ran away, thinking they would come after me next. No witnesses allowed! So I headed for the mall (all the time thinking, I don�t have a mother anymore). When I got there, I bumped into my cousin from out-of-town. She was watching a bunch of kids. I told her what had just happened, and she started to fucking laugh! She was taunting me, saying that my mother had just blown her brains out and now I had no one. I got pissed at her and left. I suddenly remembered that someone had a death wish for me (why� why?) and began searching the mall for a phone. There were no phones, wtf? I went into the grocery store, asking where I could find a phone (�it�s important�). She told me there were phones outside the store, and when I left, there they were. For some reason, they were out of order so I started walking around town, looking for help. Over by the movie theatre, there was a big roadblock. I went to see what was going on, and there was some big protest going on. I figured, hell there�d definitely be a phone somewhere around there. I climbed over the wall of sandbags, and amongst the yelling and commotion, I saw it. A phone with a sign over it, �for emergency use only, please limit all calls to five minutes�. This was an emergency, was it not? I had a murderer trying to hunt me down! I called home and told my dad he had to come and pick me up right away, there was someone coming after me (I saw him, leaning next to the phone like he hadn�t a care in the world). �Dad, I�m at the protest by the theatre, come and get me RIGHT NOW! If you don�t, you won�t have a daughter anymore!� Click. What the hell was I going to do now? Here he was, grinning at his prey. I hid in my mind, and then I saw the previous evening flashing in my memories� doctors had come to the house, they�d told my mother she was dying. They had come to hook her up to a bunch of gadgets, monitoring her stats. I saw the pain in her face. I remember going to my bed, drifting off. I remember my mother going into her bedroom (she�d beat death before it stole her). Then I knew it, I knew what she was going to do in there. I covered my ears and flinched at the noise that I knew was going to come.

And then I woke up. Now can you please tell me what the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I keep having these types of dreams?

I lay in bed trying to make sense of it all. And then I started to wonder if this was all foresight� was my mother dead, had she killed herself overnight? Why would she do that? I began to worry about her. That�s when I realized that no matter how much hate I feel for her, no matter how badly she treated me growing up, and no matter how much shit she puts me through� she�s still my mother. Maybe I don�t like her and appreciate not having her in my life� but when she�s gone, she�s gone. Finished.

I tried going back to sleep, but the thunderstorm was putting me through hell. I woke up the next morning, and my aunt said that my mother had called earlier in the morning (she�s calling me from the dead?), and that I have to call her back. At my dad�s. I dialed the number, and spoke with my dad first. I told him I wasn�t doing so great, that I was stuck in the apartment and they weren�t taking me anywhere. And then I told him about the whole funding agency fiasco. And even thousands of kilometers away, over the phone, he put that invisible band-aid on my feelings. He made me all better (�We�ll figure something out, don�t worry about it�). I love my dad so much, my superhero dad.

Then he put my mother on the phone. As she spoke to me, drunk or hung over or both, I was in shock. I was talking with a dead person. I told my mind to come back to reality, and then I was relieved. She was still alive. Did I actually feel glad that she was? I don�t know, but I felt better when I got off the phone.

It�s weird how you can believe something so strongly, and then something as insignificant (but not in this case) as a dream brings you back to reality.

Really weird.

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