dream

I'm backing a large red convertible slowly through dusty streets. Not quite the middle of nowhere - a water tower in the distance, the town just out of sight (across the tracks, over the hill, a presence in the background). The convertible is dusty and old and I'm backing it very slowly, uncertainly avoiding the occasional car parked by the side of the road. Becoming more steady I start to accelerate.

Suddenly, at the intersection at the end of the next block, I see a group of enormous figures slowly processing down the cross street - a giant human shaped figure with enormous antlers, four stories high; a couple of articulate stuffed-animals (a bear, a bird), almost as high (20 feet?); an animate stegosaurus skeleton, less majestic than the others, smaller, more ominous.

I leap from the car and huddle behind a rickety fencepost, a treetrunk, hoping I'm not noticed. A couple of the figures break from their majestic line and slowly start prowling down the street on which I abandoned the car. I run hunched and creeping from tree to tree through the undergrowth, the dusty half-park that fills the block, trying not to be seen.

Just out of sight, behind the tree in front of me, a munching sound, rustling, a large presence. I pick up a long, thin branch from amongst the many fallen and piled around the trees. Coming around the corner, I see it's the large stuffed bird, towering over me. I prod it with the branch which it snaps at hungrily, beginning to eat it.

I rush past with another branch, leaping ten feet into the air, but behind it, suddenly, the stegosaurus skeleton - attempting to feed it the branch, it clearly wants more, and its jaws snap dangerously close to my face as I fly by. Crashing to the ground, I run full tilt back toward my car, not looking back, uncertain if the stegosaurus follows or continues on its way.

In the distance, piles of much smaller stuffed birds arranged in rows, forming a tall triangle between the roots of a giant tree, sing a sad, wailing chorus. A similar pile, again organized into a triangle between the roots of another tree of stuffed teddy bears joins their voices. They are covered in dust, oversized, animate in a sad, slow manner. A dirty lament.