2/20/25 Dream

We walked together as usual through the twisting hills of the dunes, expecting to be greeted by the Pacific at the peak.

There were no familiar sounds of swell, no wind.

The beach grass stood still and I didn’t see any shorebirds.

We walked in the sand to the high tide water line and time seemed to stopped.

Silence.

I came to, feeling like I’d been jolted from sleep, surrounded by more people than I've ever seen in this small town at one time.

They stood and stared.

Catatonic.

I saw their faces, but couldn’t make out the details.

I wondered where they came from so quickly and why they weren’t making any sound.

Everyone but me stared towards the sea.

I slowly and nervously, turned my head to the right to see that it had pulled back so far that no water was visible.

There was only barron, rolling mountains splattered with seaweed and bullwhip kelp, as if someone had pulled the plug at the bottom of a dirty bathtub. 

I wondered and worried about a tsunami.

We live every day at the mercy of the world’s biggest ocean.

60 million square miles and 13,000 feet deep.

She calls the shots.

The doom I was feeling from the sea’s disappearance was quickly replaced by the horror of a fleshy, blue eyed humanoid creature that crawled out of a hollow log on the seafloor, seemingly swept up from the depths of hell.

Its skin was wrinkled and waxy - the way your fingers and toes look after spending too much time in the water.

We locked eyes, and as I started to scream

I woke up.