Nightmare 01/14/2023.

I had a disturbing nightmare where I was back in my old neighborhood of Co-op City.  It was a dark gray overcast day.  I entered what is called a “Tower Building”:  One of three models of building in the development.

I got aboard an elevator, and headed for the 34th floor (There is no 34th floor in a tower building in real life).  The elevator stopped at the 37th floor.  Any dweller in an apartment house knows the reflex of stepping out of an elevator, even if it’s the wrong floor.  That is precisely what I did.

I ran into a large man with piercing dark eyes.  His muscular arm and hand grabbed me by the wrist.  He asked if I can help him with something.

Some instinct told me that he had malicious intent.  I excused myself and stepped back on the elevator before it closed.  The large, dark eyed man followed me onto the elevator.  Then he started to ask personal questions.  Even in the dream, I found myself bodily cringing.  I felt as helpless as a little boy.

Before anything menacing could happen, the elevator reached the lobby.  I exited the elevator at a quickened pace.  The large man followed me with a stride that would seem casual to the passerby, but he covered distance that put him mere paces behind me.

I went to the library far end of the Bartow shopping center and ran to the upper level.  However, the interior of the library reminded me of the St. Agnes library on the Upper West Side at West 82nd and Amsterdam Avenue.  I looked down the stairwell and saw the large man take his time ascending it.

I ran to the librarian and pointed out the large man.  I begged her to tell him to stop following me.  I could sense the large man behind me.  I saw the librarian quail at the sight of him.  I knew she would be of no help.

So I walk to a set of library shelves.  The large man follows me.  I fixed my gaze at the shelves as the large man stands next to me.  He asked his intrusive questions again.

I noticed the floor is sticky.  I asked a second librarian if the floor had just been mopped.  I looked at the large man and I realized he just urinated on the floor.  Everybody backed away from the large man as he left.

The police arrived at the library and made an inquiry with me.  They follow me to the tower building.  We met a member of building management and a security guard.  They proceeded to ask me more questions.  They asked me to enter the building but I was too frightened.  Next, they invited me to a building community meeting.

Abruptly, I woke up.

Is this how women feel?  The last time I felt like this was when I was a young boy.  Both women and children are seen as defenseless, unless you’re one of the more feisty and aggressive strain of street kid.

The large man?  I don’t remember seeing him in real life.  Never in my life did I see a man who fit that description.  Perhaps was he an amalgam of shady men who intimidated me when I was a child?

“Dreams are dreams,” my wife and friends tell me when I describe my nightmares to them.  I will tell you this:  I often feel I’ve been given a window to parallel lives, of avenues my life could have gone.  In the past, I’ve played the role of an accomplice to a rape.  I’ve even had a nightmare of myself as a rapist.  This is the first time I’ve seen myself in the role of a victim.  These dreams are vivid.  I could mistake them for reality.  Yet on a road not taken within a vast radiating multiverse, have I lived a life of unending dread, terror, and brutalization?

- JJB