A Dream of the Ways of God?

By John Collins

This is a book where a husband and wife are taken to a fantasy realm. There they catch a glimpse of what it might mean to see why it is that some things happen the way they do. It is filled with suspense and plenty of humor. This deeply thought-provoking book really opens up the concept that it is okay for us not to know everything, but it is unacceptable for us to blindly agree with either side of the Is there a God? argument. You will laugh, you will feel uncomfortable, and after reading this, you will want to tell your friends all about it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490824277

John Collins

JOHN COLLINS is professor of global studies at St. Lawrence University and the editorial director of Weave News. He is the author of Global Palestine and coauthor with Eve W. Stoddard of Social and Cultural Foundations in Global Studies. He lives in Canton, New York.

Book preview

1

The Cave

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It was late one night and Rachel and I had been asleep for a few hours. I left the window halfway open to let in the cool breeze of early spring drift into the room. Even with the blinds dropped all the way down streams of light from the lamp post out front still find a way to sneak in, so there is always just enough light to be able to see everything in the room at any time of the night. The gentle breeze swings the blinds out just enough so that I can hear them periodically tap softly against the sill.

Our bedroom is on the second floor and with no easy way to scale the wall underneath it; I am not too concerned with the possibility of intruders. The open window not only lets in the breeze but the sounds of the street, less than fifty feet in front of our building, in the room as well.

Once in a while we will hear the sound of hard-soled shoes moving quickly down the pavement as someone hurries by, but tonight the street is empty and quiet. All I can hear is the deep, low rumble given off by the late night buses as they pass by. Our corner apartment shakes slightly every twenty minutes or so whenever another one cruises by. But this sound doesn’t bother me at all; in fact, I rather enjoy it.

Perhaps it’s from growing up in an airport flight path. Where sounds like these could be heard at all times of the day and night. I know it’s not quite the same but now I try to think of it as the urban version of living at the beach where you constantly hear waves crashing onto the shore.

My dad instincts kick in, waking me up slightly as I hear a different sound. Across the hall I hear the door to our girls’ bedroom softly opening and a moment later shutting. Their shared bedroom is directly opposite from ours, and our youngest has the unfortunate habit of climbing into our bed every night around 2:30 in the morning. Now our queen sized bed isn’t anything over the top fancy but it works pretty well, for those brief moments in time when it’s just the two of us.

It has become a family tradition for them to climb in on my side, hog all the covers, and slowly nudge me completely out of the bed in the process. With this in mind, I thought nothing of it when I felt the down comforter being peeled back. I sometimes hang my feet out from under the sheets, as I tend to get too hot at night anyway, so I thought nothing of it and tried to go back to sleep. It wasn’t until I felt the covers being pulled down past the usual stopping point that I noticed that something was different.

Groggy, I sit up on my elbows and look to see who was climbing in this time but no one was there. I glance around the room and still see no one. While I wait for my brain to make some kind of sense out of this, I notice that the covers were not just being pulled to the side, creating just enough space for a small person to worm their way into. Instead they were being dragged off the both of us down towards our feet, exposing the entire top half of our bodies.

It was this extra bit of chill and the soft sound of all the covers being dumped onto the floor caused me to sit all the way up and rub my eyes. I look over to see that Rachel has curled up right in the middle of the bed into a ball and was blindly sweeping her arm around in search of the missing covers. While the comforter was dumped onto the floor she somehow managed to find the sheet that only made it halfway off and wrestles it up under her chin. I hear her teeth chatter briefly as she rolls to the other side, turning her back to me, and buries herself deeper into the middle bed.

Seeing that no one else was here, I figured the wind must have knocked them off while I was sleeping and somehow the motion woke me up in the process. I sit there, staring at the ceiling.

Must have been a really strong breeze. I whisper.

As soon as I say this I feel perhaps the most unusual sensation I have ever known; I feel my entire body go numb. The only thing I can control is my neck and head, the rest of me slumps back onto the bed not responding to what my brain is telling it to do. Before I have too much time to react to this I feel myself being lifted up out of the bed. I turn to see that even though she is still asleep, Rachel is being lifted up out of the bed as well.

Our torso’s rise first, allowing our arms to linger on the bed a moment longer than the rest. I feel the cool night air rushing in to fill the space that now resides between the bed and us. Within seconds most of our bodies are completely off the bed. As we steadily rise higher, the last section of our sheets that she worked so hard to cover herself up with, slide off her legs and fall onto the bed. The air feels soft as it completely wraps around us.

We climb higher over the bed flat as a board. Rachel is still asleep with her arms now dangling below the rest of her body. A few feet before we hit the ceiling we pause. I can feel my heart beat speeding up. Rachel has no idea what is going on. She keeps turning her head side-to-side trying to find a more comfortable spot on the pillow; little does she know that it’s at least three feet underneath us still on the bed.

Uncontrollably our arms start moving out in front of us. I try to pull them back but it is no use. I watch as our arms lazily rise as if we were nothing more than a couple of marionettes with their stings being pulled. We tilt forward, bending very gently at the waist, until our bodies reach a vertical position. It’s that same motion you go through when someone steps on your feet and reaches down to grab a hold of your arms pulling you up.

By now I am breathing as heavily as a wild hog. As soon as Rachel wakes up and sees where we are and me breathing like this I’m sure she will freak out. I feel a tingling sensation as I manage to regain some control of my legs and feet. Stretching my toes as far as they will go, I swing my legs back and forth trying to somehow snag some piece of the sheets that might somehow be able to use to pull us back down again.

Now I know my concept of time may be off some when being woken out of a deep sleep like this, but it feels as though we stayed in this position for several minutes. Just hanging out in mid air, kicking desperately at the bed below us.

In the middle of one of my kicks the force that was holding up our arms lets go and they fall limp to our sides. My arms feel as if I had laid on them wrong all night and now are on fire as I try to get them to do what I want. After a lot of will power I am able to shake one arm vigorously. I use that hand to smack the other arm to get the blood flowing once again. All I can feel are the millions of little pin pricks burning inside my arms as the nerves come alive once more, from the tops my shoulders to the ends of my fingers. I have had enough of this; I have to wake her up so she can see what is happening.

Pssst…Rachel. Wake up. I say not so quietly.

She rolls her head to the other side and shrugs it off. Well that is just not going to work for me. I reach over and shake her by the shoulder. Softly at first and then hard enough so that I know she is awake.

Sorry, but wake up! You have to see this.

She reaches up, arms over her head twists slightly to the side and lets out a slight groan in mid yawn as she comes out of this big stretch.

Yeah, what is it? She asks sounding out of breath.

Her lackadaisical response surprises me. Umm, look down. I say gesturing towards the floor.

She rolls her eyes at me before raising both hands up to wipe them clean so she can force them all the way open. She gives me a look to signal that she is going to play along and then looks down.

Wow, cool. How did you do that? She says not seeming to be too upset.

I didn’t do it. I felt the covers coming off the bed, woke up to see what was going on, and then before I know it we ended up like this. I say almost panting, getting all worked up.

This is probably just some kind of elaborate dream or something. Just relax.

If it is a dream then how are you able to be in it, talking to me right now?

Maybe you were dreaming of me?

I have had dreams of flying and about you but never had them both at the same time before.

So this is a first for us. She replies smiling and looks around at the room.

The reality that this might just be a dream would make perfect sense of our newfound powers; I just don’t know that I believe it. It doesn’t feel like any dream I have ever had before. I start to think of what we look like and how I would explain this to the girls if they did happen to come in the room right now. The best I can describe it, is if we were standing up on an invisible table, a few feet above the bed. I swing my leg down once more at what little bit of the sheets are left on the bed. Didn’t think I would be able to reach them but had to give it a try.

Before I have time to be convinced either way about this being a dream, a new sensation grabs a hold of me all of a sudden. I get butterflies in my stomach and feel slightly disoriented. Like when you pull into a parking spot right as the car next to you starts to back out. Where you have to pump the brakes one extra time to make sure your car wasn’t rolling off accidently.

It takes me a second to place it but after a brief moment I realize that we are being drawn forward towards the wall that separates our room from the girls. I reach over and grab Rachel’s arm to get her attention. She slaps my hand away and stares back at me, annoyed. Not catching on to what is happening. Again I work to get her attention. I give her a little push and when she looks over at me I don’t say anything. I just direct her gaze to the wall in front of us still closing in. Her wide-eyed look of amazement matches my own.

Why are we moving?

If I knew the answer to that then I might be able to tell you how we ended up here in the first place.

We are moving slowly but steadily forward. Before we even made it to the end of the bed we have already had enough time to contemplate a few possibilities as to what might happen, if something doesn’t change soon.

Well, at least the wall will stop us. We have nowhere else to go. She says, looking around with quiet anticipation.

I hope you’re right. I mean you have to be right, what else can happen? I say after several tense breaths.

The wall, which is now only about two arm lengths away, is steadily heading our way and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

We put our hands out in front of us in a foolish effort to try and stave off the impact. As I have the longer reach, I steady myself for the first contact and direct Rachel to use me a brace once I am able to stop myself. But then this amazing thing happens.

Right as my hand gets to the point of contact against the pale shade of sage green paint the previous tenants had chosen, my fingers just sort of sink in. My eyes flash open in shock as the wall simply oozes around my fingers. This is not the hard plaster and dry wall that I know is supposed to be here. Instead it feels like the wall has suddenly turned into a giant green vat of overcooked oatmeal. My eyes stay locked on this while I watch my hand sink deeper in.

As the wall creeps up to the point of almost covering the back of my hand, I come to and try to draw it back out but find I cannot. Again I pull and still nothing happens. Instead of being able to pull my hand out I feel something else trying to pull me deeper in.

This isn’t oatmeal, its quick sand. I am up to my elbow in the wall before my brain makes the connection that I should warn Rachel about this. I whip my head around to tell her not to touch the wall only to see that it is too late. She has already made contact with it and the expression on her face is enough to know that she feels herself being pulled in too.

Don’t worry, it’s just a dream. I say trying to sound positive so she can feel calm.

Having turned my body I am up to my shoulder on one side before my other hand makes contact. It too begins to be sucked in along with my right leg. In my head I know that, this is just a solid piece of construction which has been sitting a few feet in front of our bed for a couple of years now. And I have enough bruises on my shins to remind me that it didn’t feel this soft every other time ran into it in the middle of the night. But here I am watching my body slowly melt into the wall. As if that’s how walls were designed to be used in the first place.

A soft warming sensation starts up in my appendages that have already sunk deep into the wall. Soft like how I remember the curtains feeling in elementary school that blocked off the cafetorium stage. Those tall, fake velvet, curtains that were always some shade of dark blue or emerald green. There was always that one spot where they would overlap by a few feet right in the middle. Thinking about it like this combined with the wall gently tugging on my arms makes this whole thing seem like the wall was cheering me on to dive farther in.

I take in a deep breath and give into the inevitability of what’s going to happen next and force myself to sink faster into the wall. I can feel the wall sliding up my body. Biceps, shoulders, in a matter of seconds I can feel my torso beginning to make contact. The more of my body that contacts the wall the quicker I am being pulled in.

I close my eyes tight, take in what might well be my last breath, just before my head starts to dip in. I feel the slop of the wall wash over me, thick as wet paint. I feel it cover my face and slowly drip down into my ears. In a flash I feel something gently tugging on the back of my neck. Startled by this, I have to force myself not to breathe in just yet, but just allow whatever is going to happen next take over.

The gentle tug on the back of the neck instantly changes into a full force yank as my body is flung forward. I surge forward until I am completely submerged.

My body rocks and twists along for a few seconds and then out of nowhere I am violently shaken up and down. It feels like I dropped over ten feet down into a hole in the ground and then rocketed all the way back up, in less than a second.

This sudden jarring motion forces me to expel the last bit of air I was holding in. As instinctively I suck in another breath. My eyes crack open for a split second as well. I brace for the burning sensation I am sure is about to flood my eyes and lungs but remarkably it doesn’t happen. I cautiously open my eyes again.

As soon as they are opened, the remnants of what I felt passing through the wall quickly dissipate. It is clear that I have made it through but I have no idea to where. All I know is that I can see and breathe, that’s a good start so far.

Everything is grey, calm and quiet. It was like I had somehow stepped into a giant soap bubble without popping it. I quickly pat myself down to make sure that some part of me didn’t change or fall off in the cross over. I wobble horribly as I forcibly turn myself around just in time to watch Rachel emerge from the wall. She comes out eyes wide open and coughing. As she finishes a second round of coughing she draws in the new air deep into her lungs.

Oh thank god, we both made it through alright.

Where are we?

I have no idea! I say trying hard to work my way back so I am facing the direction we are traveling.

Now on the other side of the wall, our ride does not stop as I was hoping it might, instead it takes a change for the worse. While we were over the bed, and even as we were heading towards the wall, we moved slowly and with steady grace. But within seconds of being on this side, I began to feel short bursts of power sending us lurching forward an inch at a time.

When I had first gotten my driver’s license I would take long drives out in the country. Partially to get some time behind the wheel away from my parents and city traffic but also because I simply fell in love with the open expanses of the countryside that would unfold around me. Quite often I would end up going down roads that were badly in need of repair. Actually, the worse off the condition of the road was, the more I enjoyed it.

Being tossed around the inside of my two door Hyundai Excel while speeding down some strange little piece of asphalt in the middle of nowhere Louisiana, was a great time! And if I could find one of those old gravel or caliche roads, well, that just meant we were really going to have some fun. It’s still so amazing to me that I never broke that car in half.

Back here in the dim light reminds me of that, as some spots shake us around so badly that it feels like we just hit one massive pothole in the road after another. We are being bounced around so violently that no matter how hard I try, I can’t keep my teeth from clanging together. Hitting one another with such force that a few times I swear I had chipped as many teeth as I have fingers. To say that my balance is bad to begin with is an understatement, but with all this motion being forced on us at these random times, I am really struggling. Every few seconds I show my best impression of a fish on dry land flopping from to one side to the other, as I just try to stay upright. Rachel finds all this rather funny, as she is not having too much of a problem with finding her balance. Like usual.

Just sway with it. She says, trying to sound encouraging.

This is me swaying with it! I reply swinging both arms out to the side, floundering yet again.

It only takes a few minutes of this before I can taste the slight tinge of blood in my mouth after biting my tongue for the second time. I look back over my shoulder, trying not to lose any more teeth, so I can catch another glimpse of the wall. I want to try and gauge how far we have traveled so far. I can’t make out the wall itself, per say, but I do see something where the wall is supposed to be. It is as if I was trying to look through a dirty window or a plastic shower liner, how it casts a haze over everything on the other side of it. Rather than the way everything looks from an open window.

I can still kind of see everything in the room but it’s just sort of fuzzy. Except where the electrical outlet is on the lower right side of the wall, that still appears solid for some reason. I’m not superman; I have never been able to look through walls before, so I don’t know exactly what it is supposed to look like.

At first I was able to see the lines where the wall meets at the ceiling and floor on the other side of the room, but as our path draws us deeper in, what little bedroom furniture we have quickly fades away. Looking back at what is in front of us, I can see the space we’re heading towards a little more clearly now. And it looks nothing like our bedroom.

All around us is this open space that has this kind of charcoal beige tint to it. Slowly I can make out that the sides of where we are, are lumpy and very close together. The floor under us looks dry and dirty. I can see what looks like a layer of dust and sediment covering the ground, which seems to have been untouched for quite some time. It’s not exactly smooth as if it was windswept clean but instead it has these indentations, little pock marks, everywhere I look. As if it had rained in here long ago. The water is long gone by now but the outlines of where the drops landed are still present.

It looks like the pictures you see of Mars. How do you suppose that happened?

Oh look, look. Not all of them are dried up. She says in a hurried voice, pointing down at a few spots that still have some kind of slick looking substance in them.

Our ride shakes us again. Even though it is rather narrow in here, these little droplets are out of my reach. I try several times, each time to no avail. Even if I have no way to confirm what the slippery substance might be, it doesn’t stop me from trying.

Up ahead the muted colors of the walls around us gradually give way to darker tones. I stare at them trying to figure out what they might be carved out of but it is just about impossible to tell with any certainty what it is with such a low level of light around us. Not only that but I can tell that what little light we do have seems to be fading out, the farther in I look. Resembling how the first few steps into the opening of a cave might look.

Well this sucks! Not only are we getting knocked around but now all the light is fading out, too! Rachel spits out in one of the brief moments of calm we get between the rumblings that force us from one side to the other.

As dark and foreboding as it is ahead of us, this clearly is the direction we are going since our ride has us pointed right into it. I try to let my eyes adjust and then look at it again but this produces and even worse result. Keeping me constantly straining to see anything at all, making me feel very disoriented in the process. We rock back and forth more often now than we did at the start. Sometimes we are shaken so hard now that we have to brace off one another so we don’t inadvertently slam right into each other.

Yeah, it’s pretty bad. I think I ruptured something on that last one. I say holding my side after a particularly hard jolt.

We approach the spot where what was left of any shred of color is about to be washed out by the emptiness of the black cavern staring back at us. Facing into this abyss, I feel this kind of panic starting to well up inside of me. Looking out and seeing only emptiness may fill some people with a profound sense of wonder, but primarily all I feel at the moment is this overwhelming sense of dread. In a matter of minutes I won’t even be able to make out my hand in front of my face let alone any of the untold number of other things that are probably here, lurking around in the dark.

I have to fight back every new and equally upsetting thought to calm myself down. After several attempts and just as many deep slow breaths, I don’t quite regain calm but I get as close as I can. Seconds before the light drops out completely I strain, one last time, to see as much as I can before it all goes away. Something below us catches my attention.

I see more of these little pock marks with fluid in them in random places all over the ground. This bothers me greatly. Not the spots themselves, as none of them are any bigger than my fist, but the fact that there are now so many of them.

What do you think that’s about? I ask pointing them out to her.

She pauses before replying. If this is a cave, then perhaps it’s water that just naturally filtered down through the earth above us?

It could be but I have yet to feel anything dripping to indicate that this is how it got here. I say holding my hand out palm side up.

Realizing the light is about to drop out completely I lean over and give her a quick peck on the neck.

What was that for? She asks sweetly.

Well I have this feeling that we are not going to be able to see one another here in just a second, for probably quite some time, so I wanted to make sure I got one more in before then. I reply as we slide into the darkness.

The bumps that are shaking us feel different now that we are in the dark. They feel more intense and pose a greater threat now, because I have no way of knowing how close we are to one another. I keep my hands out at all times in anticipation of being struck by some flailing body part on accident. One hand out to the side and I keep the other hand in front of me to hopefully ward off whatever might be coming the other way.

Every minute or two I have this strong wave of confusion that sweeps over me. It feels like my mind is arguing with my body as to what is actually happening. I know what I am feeling but I am still not terribly convinced that it is real.    The way all of this feels makes me think there is no way that this could possibly be a dream and yet, the only way any of this could possibly make any sense at all, is if it were a dream.

The way my mind is arguing with my body is troubling enough, but add in feeling disoriented on top of that, and I have this sickly sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. I sit there struggling to find a way to stop the natural progression of getting physically ill, and the only way I can think of is to determine whether this is a dream or not. But how do you do that?

In a matter of seconds an idea comes to mind. I take a chance and lean over reaching wildly into the night to locate Rachel. Seconds later, I find what feels like her neck. I run my hand down it as softly as I can until I find her shoulder, then her arm. When I feel the meat of her bicep I work my hand toward the inside of her arm where I twist her skin and pinch that soft fleshy part just as hard as I can.

My thought here is that if I can hurt her badly enough, then she would wake up and disappear from this place, proving that it is just a dream. At least that’s what I think will happen; I mean that’s how it happens in the movies so certainly it should work here too. I hold the pinch an extra second longer than anyone should to really try to get her attention so she will wake up. The new pain I have in my left arm, from her quickly punching me with three pretty good jabs, signals to me that she does feel this and that this is not a dream. After carefully explaining exactly what it was that I was doing, she still doesn’t see it the same way I do and precedes to tell me quite loudly just how bad of an idea it was.

I respond to one of her statements but the next flurry of punches she sends my way helps me understand this is one of those times that she really doesn’t want me to answer any of her questions right now. Rubbing my arm I begin to try and come up with another idea as to what we should do now that we know that this is real.

Without anything to look at, I decide to start from the bottom and work my way up to hopefully finding something to help me make sense of where we are. I stare down at where the ground used to be. After not being able to see anything for what feels like such a long time now, I freeze stiff as a watch something scurry across the floor under us.

I saw something. I whisper loudly.

What was it?

I don’t know. I say turning my head hoping to catch another glimpse.

Where is it?

I don’t know. It was down by our feet but I’m not sure where it is now.

There! I reply still in a whisper, pointing towards the floor. Although I’m not sure why I’m pointing, as there is no way she can see where I’m aiming in this abyss.

What I saw this time was a small spot moving quickly by. Not sure how I saw it; as it was as black as the rest of this place but I saw it nonetheless.

I saw it that time. She spits out quickly.

It wasn’t too long before we were able to pick out several more of these things crawling on the ground under us.

Why are they all going the same direction?

What?

Watch…see how they are all moving in the same direction.

It only took a few seconds to see that she was right. No matter if we could only see one or a small group of about three or so, all of them were moving in the same direction. From out in front of us, towards the place we had just came from. After studying these things below us for some time, we realize that they are only the little puddles of water we had seen earlier.

Even without any source of light in this place, for some reason we can easily make out precisely where the edges of each drop are. Each one looks like it has a glassy smooth surface, which makes them really stand out against the flat black primer of the floor.

At least they’re not the rats I was dreaming up.

Our ride has yet to cease from shaking us side to side. And to add to it, we seem to be getting shaken worse now than when it first started. With such a smooth dark surface and the way these spots are scattered all around in random places, it looks like someone ran through here with an open can of oil. Spilling it all over the ground as they went.

Looking ahead of us I can start to make out these little shiny dots as far out as I can see. Rachel notices that some of these little splatters of oil are joining together. Changing from individual spots on the ground into small puddles. But she quickly observes that there is more to it than just that. They are seemingly becoming less scattered in all directions and are being slowly corralled into a wide area directly in front of us.

Look! She shouts. Each time we…get bounced around we end up…really close to one of these… little puddles. She says between getting shoved from one side to the other.

About ten feet ahead of us and off to our left, a few even larger puddles are gathered. Sure enough we bump into each other as we are forced over to that side.

We start to put the pieces together that our magic carpet ride bounces us in whatever direction it has to so it can move towards the next puddle along the path. The first splatters we could see started off only a few inches across. No bigger than the image left behind when the first few fat rain drops hit the hot summer pavement. As we go deeper into this place, the sizes now range anywhere from four to fourteen feet in diameter and are growing larger all the time. Splatters became puddles and the puddles became little pools.

With the puddles being not only larger now but more frequent as well, I notice that we are not just pulled in the direction to where they are but that there is something else interesting that happens each time we come upon one as well.

Whenever a puddle is large enough for us both to be over top of it, there is this extra-hard initial jolt as we cross over its edge, and then it becomes smooth sailing for the couple of seconds it takes for us to reach the other side. Then it’s back to the kidney pounding bumpy road until we cross over top of another one and our ride smoothes out again. It is a welcome change for the brief respite we get as we move directly over top of these the puddles where we just glide along with ease. This few moments of rest we get, has me hoping that the next one we come across is larger than the last.

I am just so happy about the break my body gets each time we cross over several of these larger pools that it takes me some time to notice something else, even more unusual that is happening when we encounter them. Not only does our ride smooth out when we are over these pools but we seem to pick up speed each time as well. There are really no good landmarks here, so trying to accurately gauge how fast we are going at any given moment is a terribly difficult thing to do.

While we are over top of these pools I can feel the air rushing past us just a little bit faster than when we are just bumping along. The air moves slowly between the puddles then when we cross over top of one I can feel the air constantly speeding up with each passing moment until we reach the back end. As soon as we drop off that edge, the air rapidly slows down again and we return to the slow pace of a simple tractor ride out in the country.

Watching how all of this is repeating over and over again, I just sense that these pools are building up for something, but for what I’m not sure.

2

Lights

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Hey, check that out. She says motioning for me to look ahead. Now even the puddles and pools are blending together.

As they combine not only are they getting larger but are stretching out more too. Instead of being scattered across the entire floor more and more they are all slowly all moving towards the middle of the cave floor, as if they were forming some kind of path. At this rate it isn’t long before we spend more time coasting over top of the pools than bouncing

from one to the next. I confess the idea of trying to find out where this little trail in the middle of nowhere might lead to does make me pretty excited. Thirty yards ahead of us I can just barley make out one last big break in the path.

If what we have seen so far are in fact puddles then I feel like we just watched the birth of a river. We drop off the back edge of the last puddle. One last great drop primes our system as we prepare for the jarring upswing that is about to smash into us. My joints ache from the force thrust upon us to crest the surface of this newly formed stream. Instantly the ride smooth’s out as we sail off into the unknown.

We snake along in jagged motions as the stream seeks out and swallows each smaller pool that is nearby. The same way the water does along the curb in summertime. The neighbor’s sprinkler system saturates the yard until it overflows sending a trickle of water racing down the edge of the street. The water gets caught at a few spots, behind dry leaves or patches of loose dirt building up pressure before it breaks loose and continues the trip towards the finish line of the culvert at the end of the block. This new stream is the same. A few puddles join in the flow and then we sit still for a brief moment until there is enough pressure built up that it lurches out at the next one in line. And then the next one, and the next.

We travel in this lurching motion for what feels like a very long time. We watch as this newborn stream we are hanging over, winds around from side to side, acting like a ravenous wolf swallowing up every small puddle that it can find along the way. With each new pool that meets its fate by joining in, the banks of our stream swell just a little more. Even though I have been watching the whole thing happen, I didn’t realize just how big the stream had become until Rachel pointed it out to me.

Well it looks like this hungry little puddle of ours has really outdone itself. Look at how big it is. What would you say it is now? Twenty maybe even twenty-five feet across?

Wow, I hadn’t even been paying attention to that but, yeah, I think you’re right.

How could you not be paying attention? This is the only thing in here that we can see.

Calls her incredulous sounding voice from out of the darkness. Better yet, if you were not looking at the stream, then what were you looking at?

I wasn’t really looking at anything, I was more just noticing how must faster we seem to be going. I say trailing off.

I put my finger in my mouth and pull it out again, holding it up in the air to test the wind. In the middle of doing this something out in the distance catches my eye.

I lean over and ask, Does that look like a storm to you?

Where?

There. I say directing her gaze.

I can’t see anything, it’s too dark.

Listen, try to look at what should be the area in front of us and kind of up by the top. See how you can just barely make out the dark grey clouds starting to form?

You want me to see dark grey clouds against a black background?

Just give it a try and tell me if you don’t think it looks like a cold front, with the clouds blowing in so quickly like that?

She lets out a sigh and a good twenty seconds pass before she says anything else. Ok, I think I can sort of see it. But that doesn’t make any sense. How can there be a storm inside a cave? That isn’t possible, right?

I am not going to pretend like I understand how it happens but I don’t think it’s unheard of for there to be odd weather patterns like this inside an enclosed area.

We watch as what I am assuming is the roof of the cave, is slowly being attacked by a layer of clouds that look like thick dirty smog. Thin wispy parts of the clouds stretch out from the main body of the storm analyzing the next section it is about to cover. Like the tentacles of an octopus. Then, seconds after they are done with the investigation, the main body of the clouds quickly swoops in and blankets it. This wispy front edge moves fast, reaches out, grabs on, and lets the body fill it in. The whole motion only takes a few seconds to complete. Over and over it does this, pulsing forward and gulping up rather large chunks of the cave in a pretty short amount of time.

It looks like a nasty virus the way it is annihilating everything.

Wait, look! It’s not just attacking the ceiling, but it’s actually filling in the whole cave.

What are you talking about? I say in disbelief, not seeing the same thing she is.

It just looks like it is at the top because it is so far away, but look at it closely compared to the surface of the stream. Ok, now give it a second… there, did you see it?

Looking at it in relation to the stream only takes a couple of seconds for me to be convinced that she is on to something. The clouds that had been confined to just being at the top were now dropping down to fill in the space underneath it. The first part gulping up the ceiling while at the same time extending a second wave of wispy tentacles down towards the stream.

You see it don’t you? She says getting slightly panicky.

I nod yes but say nothing. The way these clouds are working so hard to fill in everything it can provides me with an uneasy realization. Judging by the location of these clouds, having now easily filled in almost half of the entire cave, and the direction we are traveling, we are going to have to go through them at some point. Which might not be that big a deal normally, except for the fact that I don’t really feel like taking a bath in something that looks like it just came out of a smoke stack.

But there is something more than just what they look like that has me on edge. Watching how quickly they are completely blocking off the passageway in front of us is one thing but when I look back at where they started I can’t help but notice how the clouds at the top have changed yet again. Going from looking like mild rainstorm to a sinister thunderhead, as shades of dark charcoal grey and black are mixing in with hues of green and this shade of sickly blue.

Reminding me of how the front edge of hurricanes would look as they rolled onto the shore. This angry mix of colors may have started out only in one place but soon I see them racing down at about half the speed that the clouds themselves are expanding out. Almost like this new change in the clouds is trying to chase down the wispy edge at the front.

The confusion over what this kind of weather could possibly mean and watching the strange way the clouds acting, dragging themselves around in whatever direction they want, sends shivers up my neck.

If this is some sort of thunderstorm then we should be close enough to smell the electricity from the clouds any second now. We should feel that blast of cold air right before we hear the raindrops. I say, remembering how those afternoon showers Florida is famous for, always began.

I wait, and I wait for what seems like three times longer than it should have taken to feel the change in the air. But nothing happens. Based on the intensity of what I am looking at, a slew of different things should be alerting my senses that a proper rainstorm about to hit and hit hard. And yet I feel nothing. I run down my mental checklist of all the basic elements that indicate a heavy storm is closing in.

The temperature drops, there is a particular smell that the air gets, and the hairs on your arms prickle up. I have been told that old farmers sometimes can even feel a storm coming because their knees start to feel tight, long before they could ever see it on the horizon.

The clouds eventually block out anything on the other side of it. Turning the once calm dark cave into a bubbling swirling mass. It’s so thick up ahead that I can’t even tell where the banks of our oil spill for a river stop and the clouds began. I grab Rachel around the waist and bring her in as close as I can. It is clear that unless we change course drastically at the last second we are about to enter these clouds whether we want to or not.

There is no use in getting too worked up about what was going to happen, as there is clearly nothing we could do about it anyway. Besides, in only a matter of minutes we will have already reached the leading edge of storm. The sticky wet mist doesn’t seem to care about our travel plans though, as we keep on sailing into the heart of the storm.

Can you see anything?

No, you?

These clouds feel thick and damp. My chest gets tight and I have to exert extra effort just to breathe. Now it feels more like I am back in New Orleans on one of those brutal afternoons in September, when the temperature and the humidity were both in the high ninety’s. The one’s that force your clothes to stick to the sweat of your body as soon as you walk outside, even after you’ve just dried off from getting out of the shower. I hold up my hand in front of me and wave it around wildly. But it doesn’t do any good; I can’t see anything.

No. In fact I can’t even see myself. I know in my head that right now my hand is only an inch in front of my face but I can’t see it.

I’m just glad that you are still holding on to me. Don’t let go, ok?

I won’t. I say grabbing on just a little tighter.

I know that we are still moving forward by the sound of the wind steadily blowing past my ears but all I can see are clouds. I just hope that whoever is driving this thing is better at seeing in a rainstorm than I am. Not sure what is around us but if I was in control, I’m sure we would have run into it by now.

After being stuck inside these clouds for way too long I begin to feel a little depressed. I decide the best way to counter act this is to try to make a game out of the whole thing. Which, strange as it sounds, actually brings me a small level of comfort. Not that I am happy about our situation, but anything that helps me take my mind off of where we actually are, is a win.

I think about it like this, if the clouds are so thick that I can’t tell where I am, then perhaps, I can be wherever I want. Perhaps, we are no longer inside this cave. No, we are somewhere else right now; it just happens to look like this because we have our eyes closed as we sit back and drink in the moment. Say like on a… cruise ship. If I think about it hard enough, I can almost trick myself into feeling the warm salty air of early evening. Rachel and I are sitting out on the top deck having just come in from a full afternoon of snorkeling in the clear blue water of the Caribbean. Having spent hour after hour being surrounded by fish that have more colors to them than I have ever seen, we both fall into the deck chairs exhausted and happy. Instead of these soggy clouds around us I try to focus on how it feels when the warm evening sun dries the salt from ocean onto my skin. I lean over and explain to Rachel where I think I am at the moment.

That sounds nice. She says.

She tells me that she is going to give it a try. It doesn’t take her long before she comes up with a completely different concept of where she would rather be, given the option. She describes her image in such explicit detail. Looking out from the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower at night, over the Paris skyline, during a light rain. Where there is just enough rain to wet everything down but not so heavy that it blocks out the view. Where all the lights get that soft halo look to them that lasts late into the night. I have to admit her idea is very impressive.

I’m not sure when it started to thin out as I have actually had my eyes closed for a while now. Dreaming up all sorts of other places we could go. I remember closing them to listen to Rachel’s descriptions of Paris, but for the life of me I can’t seem to remember how long ago that was. When I do finally open my eyes to have a look around I am astonished at how different it looks now.

The first thing that jumps out at me is how the color of the air has once again changed. Not gradually like before but as soon as I open my eyes it is completely different. All the evil hues of those massive clouds have cleared out and left behind a perfectly stunning moonless night. There is a strange peace that this change brings, even though now we really have nothing to look at. No horizon, no swirling cloud patches… just emptiness. Yet it has a calming level of emptiness that it both soothing and unsettling.

The very next thing I notice is how completely black everything is. It is such a level of dark that your mind can’t process it. Like on a school field trip to see the local cave system, when the tour guide leads you down to the end of the trail and then turns off all the lights at once. You start to create things that you think might be there but you know in your heart they are not.

Except there is only one problem with this, I can see us perfectly. It’s as though we are being tracked by a spotlight. We stand out like actors on the stage, in this vast expanse of black sky. I wave my hand in front of my face in astonishment. Rachel watches me closely at first and then turns her attention on herself. When she looks back over I can’t tell if her expression is one of being intensely amazed or frightened.

I attempt a curtsey to lighten the mood. But my balance is still bad enough that it ends up looking like I am trying to avoid a bee about to sting my leg. I regain my pseudo upright position and play it off like I meant to do that but it doesn’t work. We both let out a hearty laugh at my expense. But that’s all right; it feels good to be able to laugh in a place like this. It almost feels like we are being defiant in a way. Like we are refusing to let the situation dictate the way we are supposed to act.

Coming out from this little bout of laughter I look down and I am happily surprised to once again make out the edges of the river below us.

You can see that too, right?

It has to be the same one from earlier don’t you think?

Has to be, I guess we will get to see where it leads to after all. I say, feeling happy about there being at least one thing around us that’s familiar.

The river surface however has changed some. It is now reflecting whatever light this is, that is focused on us, back up in our direction. Acting very much like a mirror allowing us to see ourselves from a whole new perspective.