Sometime Before 9/11

Warm air rushed past my ears like a hurricane and picked up the dust spilled heavily from above. I’d been running up a series of escalators for what had seemed a long while, and then the fire fighters came, running down past me as quickly as I ran up the opposite way. They seemed like ghosts as they bounded by in silence, unaware of me, and for a little while, everything went slow. I could make out the bright hats and purposeful clothing, but they were faceless men. I could not fathom why I was going up the escalators whilst they and others, all seemed to be headed down, I was very much going against the grain. Never the less, this was a dream in which I exercised no control and minimum self awareness, I was someone else at that point. It wasn’t until I eventually launched off the top of an escalator and found myself in a large glass foyer that it became apparent I had in fact been a long way down, underground; it must have been several floors. I had been headed for the exit which now presented itself before me, then slowing to a walk, I proceeded in serene calm. A pang hit as I exited and saw law enforcement officers on my right, but then lifted, as I saw an old childhood friend stood waving over the roof of a an automobile from the driver’s side’s open door. I smiled and broke to a jog towards the automobile, unless I was shot from behind, which seemed unlikely now, something had been accomplished, there was a sense of elation. I have never felt a sense of achievement in a dream, before or since, to this day I can only guess at what had been achieved. // I only ever told my then girlfriend of what I had dreamt. When we were dismissed from a lecture theatre to telephone home and find the nearest television that fateful day, I hadn’t made a link. It wasn’t until I saw the much later footage of the fire fighters from within one of the buildings that I went green, I had seen it before.