Visions in the Dark

The dream starts off with me somewhere in the southern United States. The prominant colours theme of this dream are blue and orange. The sky is clear and blue. It is dry and arid and there is lots of dusty orange back country and only small towns scattered here and there. I am a private investigator hired to look into the murders of several young women because people are frustrated with the lack of progress from the police. I have a list of suspects and narrow it down to a man working at a remote gas station. I drive there at about noon (in a cobalt blue pick-up truck) and find the man talking to a police officer in a brown uniform, dark sunglasses and tan colored coyboy hat. The police man eyes me suspiciously when I ask if the suspect would like to answer some questions, but does not interfere. When I am done with my inquiries, the man quickly retreats into the gas station's office and the police officer wants to ask me some questions of his own. I do not remember what the questions were but they were personal in nature and irrelevant to why I was doing the investigation, so I decined to answer. I get into my vehicle (which is now a light grey four door car) and drive away.

I drive for some time and come across a school in the middle of nowhere that looks like an old wooded train station. There are a group of boys playing out front and I stop to ask them some questions. I notice as I get out of my car that a police SUV passes by and the officer of the gas station is behind the wheel. He stares at me as he slows down and drives by. The first boy I talk to is blond and about 10 years old. He wears a blue sweater hand knit sweater with white letters across the front that spells "CHRIS." I ask him if he has seen anyone suspicious around or if he has seen anything weird. Chris shakes his head no, but his avoidance of eye contact and his arms hugging himself make me believe otherwise. Since I do not want to force the boy to talk, I tell Chris that if he ever needs to talk to someone, he can come to me. I give him one of my office cards with my cell phone number on it.

The rest of the boys do not know anything, but one of them reveals that his older sister is one of the missing young women. The sun begins to set and the boys are called back into the school. I don't really think about why they are going into the school and not onto a bus to home. I get back into my vehicle, which again looks like a blue pick-up truck and drive for some time. The sky is a blazing orange when I find myself at a dead end. The is a large deep blue lake, and though I can see the road continue on the far side, there is no bridge and the land around the water is too rough for vehicles. I turn my truck around and head back in the direction of the school. When I get there it is dark and while the school is still in the same place when I left, a whole town seems to have sprung up along the road and some sort of carnival or festival is going on. There are coloured lights and decorations strung between the buildings and across the the buildings on the otherside. All of the structures look old fashion, like a set from an old wild west film or something. I park my truck on the side of the road and walk into town. While there are many people around, talking, drinking, partying, etc. I notice that the only other vehicle in the area is the police SUV I saw before.

I ask a few of the people who are sitting on the porches of the buildings if they know anything about the missing people, but no one seems to know anything, or at least, anything they want to share. I observe several people shoot nervous glances at each other when talking to me and some just refuse to say anything, even that they know nothing. My cell phone rings and a deep, gravelly voice tells me to 'get out of town, or there will be trouble.' I ignore the threat and decide to enter one of the buildings and find that it is a small one room school house when I go in. Except for the desks and chalkboard, it is empty. The building beside is exactly the same, even though it says 'saloon' on the outside and has several men drinking on the porch. Upon investigating the rest of the buildings they are all singular unit school rooms. The original school looks like a modern gymnaseum with many inflatable beds, upon which many children sleep. I go back outside and find that while the town is still there, the partiers have disappeared and most of the colour has been drained from the world. It appears to be daytime again, and it is very bright, but the sky is grey, the dust under my feet are grey, the wood on the buildings are no longer browns and dark oranges but grey. The only colour I can see is the blue in Chris's sweater, as the boy is standing on the middle of the street and seems to be waiting for me. An extra letter has appeared on his sweater and it now says "CHRIST." I walk up to him and he says that he knows something about the missing people. He starts to say something which I just know is going to be really significant, but...


...the telephone beside my bed rings and wakes me up! D'oh!