~ March 18, 2004 - 11:39 a.m. ~
The Bad Dream
NOTE: Please do not read the following if you have a weak stomach, or are not interested in reading something amazingly depressing. What follows in an account of the worst dream I have ever had. I dreamt that I was involved in some sort of attack: a random act of terror. The why was for some reason unimportant. I�m not even sure I was myself. That is, I think I might have been watching out of the eyes of someone who was not me, because the part of my dream-mind I could identify as �me�, as �Gina� remained strangely detached from the surrounding horror.
I was in a place of smoke and rubble and small, guttering fires, but no ash rained down. People all around me were running and screaming, and I, unsure of the source of the chaos, ran too, stumbling and tripping over debris, encumbered by the fact that I was pregnant. Not too pregnant, only about four months or so, but showing nonetheless.
I stumbled and fell on my face, and when I looked up, it was to face a pair of dusty black combat boots, conspicuously stained with blood. Panning up, I saw it was a man, masked and goggled, with a few guns: military looking, but from what country�s military I couldn�t be sure. He reached down and grabbed me by the hair and began to drag me toward an alley where there was no fire or debris. To shocked to scream, I struggled to free myself, prying at his thick, gloved fingers with my slender, weak ones.
In the alley, he raised me up by my hair, then flung me into a reclining position onto some trash bags. He unbuckled his belt and I knew I was about to be raped. But before he got any further, he noticed my swollen belly and realized I was pregnant.
�You dirty whore!� he shouted at me. �You bitch!� I do not think he was speaking English.
He took a handgun from his holster, and, forcing my legs open, thrust it inside me and pulled the trigger.
I was not hurt. The shock at realizing I felt no pain blinded me to the fact that the man had left. Instead, I lay there helpless, my knees bent up to my chest, watching blood pour from between my legs. Thick, sluggish blood, flecked with small, nondescript nodules of tissue. I ran my listless fingers through it, weeping silently for the baby I had lost, wondering why God did not have enough grace to let me die with my unborn child.
When I awoke, there were still tears on my cheeks. I was not scared, just sad. I do not think this dream was about me. This was another woman�s life, and I felt infinite pity for her. How could I not? I was wracked with guilt over the knowledge that in so many parts of the world, people live with this sort of terror every day, and I can�t do anything about it.
