13 august 2021
A Dream I Had
Some time ago, I had a strange dream. It was long enough ago that many of the details are hazy, and dreams are usually like that anyway, but what my mind came up with was weird enough to be memorable.
The world ended in a "zip, everybody's gone" kind of way. I woke up in a cozy house full of hallways. As I wandered around, looking at pictures on the walls, someone found me. He looked indistinctly like some kind of alien, but I wasn't really frightened. I was more amazed to still be alive.
He said I would not remember why I was here, but he would explain when the others arrived. We walked together, talking about how the world was, until the others were there and we were all suddenly gathered in a long dining room.
There were three other humans at the table, men and women; impossible for me to describe otherwise. Our host stood above us and explained that we were some kind of chosen four. We had made decisions long in the past that shaped the world we had known and, now that this world was over, we would survive while all else was lost.
He got out a deck of playing cards and split it into the four suits, a stack for each of us. We had each signed a card (with a sharpie, like some kind of magic trick) from our suit and had thus chosen how some aspect of nature or society would form. The host went down the table, visiting each of the others in turn and discussing what effect their card had.
When I looked through my stack and found the signed card, however, it was not my signature.
I remember it had flourishes that made me think it was feminine, but I can't remember a name. In any case, it wasn't mine, and I struggled in the moment before the host got to me about whether I should try to hide the fact that there must be some mistake. I knew that this was my only chance to escape the nothingness left behind the end of the world and I greatly feared death, but even the dream version of myself realized it would be wrong to lie. So, when he got to me, I told him that it wasn't my signature. That I couldn't be one of the chosen.
I remember him looking sad and telling me that he appreciated my honesty. I woke up or simply don't remember what happened next, but I don't think my honesty helped my situation.