A Terrible Prospect

I am walking along the highway from the neighboring city towards my hometown, a good 20 kilometer walk. But I don't mind the walk - I have the company of Jax, a dog belonging to friends of the family. I find myself wondering why I am walking on the highway, rather than the much less annoying and much more safe old railway that has been converted into a paved bike road.

I come to a place where there is a deep ravine down to a small stream that passes under the road, right outside the huge-ass fence that has been put there to protect the cars from driving into the ravine, should they loose control of their cars. For some reason, I have let Jax off the leash. A highly questionable decision, as I am walking on a highway. He is also a hunting dog, making it even more likely that he'll run into the road on a whim. But what happens instead is that he is running towards the ravine. Terrified that he will run into it I scream at him to stop - a fateful error. His reaction to my commanding scream is to throw himself at the ground, right at the edge of the ravine, causing him to loose his footing and fall down. I hear him howl briefly and then a loud thud, as he hits a rock. I run up to the edge and see him lying half-submerged in the stream at the bottom, legs and head in an odd angle. He is dead.

At this point, a fire suddenly erupts among the houses on the other side of the road. I pay little attention to this, despite several fire trucks, police cars and ambulances rapidly showing up. The fire is burning fast and hot, and they have to stop the passing traffic to make room for the rescue vehicles. People from the houses run over to my side of the road, paying little attention to me and my despair. Understandable, since some of their friends seem to have been caught inside a burning house. Firemen are fighting to find a way to get them out before it's too late.

I pay little attention to this. I am busy screaming and crying in agony; what have I done! How could I have let this happen! Clearly, it is my fault that poor little Jax is dead, I made so many questionable decisions, putting him in a dangerous situation and ultimately ending up dead. What are his owners going to say? What is my family going to say!? Everyone loves this dog, everyone will hate me - I hate me!

While I am busy crying and panicking about Jax, the fire burns out. The policemen go away and the crowd disperses. A young man covered in soot is walking towards me, crying. I have now finally managed to gather up the courage to call the owners and tell them what has happened. I pick up my phone and start looking to open the phone book when the man starts talking.

"Isn't it just great that your phone is working? Isn't it just great that you will be able to make a phone call?"

I realize that he thinks that I am going to call a newspaper or program, and tell them of what has transpired on the other side, and perhaps even send pictures.

"Isn't IT JUST GREAT THAT YOU STILL HAVE YOUR PHONE WHILE I HAVE LOST EVERYTHING!?"

He is holding a knife. I am holding an empty leash.

I am overwhelmed with terror, and start moving away from him. I try to ask for mercy.

"Will you please knock me out first? Please hit me in the head first!" I scream at him.

I have already accepted my fate. I deserve to die. I want to die. Dying will be so much easier than facing the anger, the disappointment, the blame of everyone I know and love, for what has happened to Jax. But I do not want to feel all that pain. The thought of what it will feel like as he jabs the knife into my body over and over again is terrifying.

I start running in the middle of the road, towards my hometown.

He tosses the knife after me.

Dream

Tonight I had the strangest nightmare... I think it took up right at the end of a previous nightmare where Sara's parents had a cabin in the forest behind the water-filled mining shaft in Grängesberg. They had put us there because there was a war going on. Now they came to pick us up and drive us to somewhere that turned out to be the Celine Dion concert in Globen, only it had been moved to a small cramped stage where our seats had been translated into really bad seats. As if that weren't enough my childhood rival turned up to claim the seat to my right. Then a cute guy came and claimed the seat in between me and Sara. After a while for reason X, since he didn't actually know her, he started making out with the girl to my right.

Then a special part of the show was just about to start. A bunch of celebrity look-alikes, all of whom where more or less hot men in their 40's (no matter what age the celebrities are in reality they looked like they did in their 40's), mixed with the audience. George Clooney passed by on the row below and Stellan Skarsgård walked by before Kevin Costner picked Sara to be his dance partner. Then they started playing Paul McCartney's Live and let Die and Sara was better at the routine than the Kevin Costner dancer. At this point I woke up wondering where the hell Harrison Ford and Paul Newman had been...

Because it's Christmas

The darkness is spreading across the sky. Soon it will be December, the month of Christmas. I feel a strange mixture of excitement and sorrow. I’m excited because I will soon be with my entire family again. But somehow the sorrow is deeper. It stems from a dream that is incompatible with a reality that is rooted in the traditions of my family since ages. My dream is to spend Christmas with you, my friends, who I love and care for just as much as my family, sometimes even more. But I know that the greatest betrayal towards my family would be to choose someone else over them on this particular holiday. Therefore I mourn the always living and always unreachable dream, and I will do so forever. And I will feel a stinging guilt on Christmas Eve, when my heart secretly betrays my family. But it will never show… Never.