Visions in the Dark

The dream starts off with me nine months pregnant with twins. I am lost and I have nothing to my name, and I wander aimlessly down a long stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. I walk for hours until I come across a little farm that seems vaguely farmiliar. I do not see any hydro lines or cars and it is soon aparent why: I am on a Mennonite farm. The Mennonite couple who answer the door are the same ones whom I remember from my youth: they owned a small store that they ran out of their house, close the the trailer park my parents and I went to every weekend in the summer. I have forgotten their names now though.

When the couple saw the state I was in, the husband rushed to hitch up the horses to the carriage and they took me to the nearest hospital, which was in a small town a few miles away. The showed great concern for me and even waited with me until I had been admitted. The Mennonite couple said they would come back the next day to check on me before they left. The hospital was a huge 5 story building that towered over everything else in the tiny town. It was strangley disproportioned compared to the area it was in, like it would be a hospital found in a busling metropolis, not a sleepy, country town. Despite its size, the hospital was unusually quiet and there seemed to be no one around.

A male nurse in green scrubs greeted the Mennonite couple plesantly but barely looked at me while he filled in the admission forms. The nurse still wouldn't look at me when he brought a gurney in for me to lay on and show the Mennonite couple out. As soon as the couple was gone the male nurse strode right past me and did not even acknowledge my presence from that point on. I was wisked away to another part of the hospital.

The female nurse pushing my gurney parked it in a hall outside of some rooms that had no one in them and I asked why I could not go into one of those rooms, but she ignored me. I was left alone in the hall and even though I could see all of the normal equipment that are in hospital halls, there was absolutely no one around. No nurses, no patients, no custodial staff: no one.

I layed on my gurney until I became restless and cold and got up to try and find someone. Just then three male doctors walked through some double doors at the end of the hall and came up to me. The one in the middle had a file that they were all looking at and discussing. I tried to get their attention, and though two of them glared at me for a second, none responded to my questions. When the three doctors were done reading the file, they finally addressed me, but said that, despite my condition, they had no rooms available for me and said that I would have to sleep outside in the grass.

I kind of stared at them dumbfounded and demanded to know why I had been admitted as a patient if they was no room - which I knew was a lie because all around me I could see rooms for patients that were completely empty, though ready for use. One of the doctors shook his head and said: "We have room for patients, just no room for you."

I broke down into bewildered tears as I was pushed to a pile of straw in a grassy spot by the hospital's main entrance and asked to get off the gurney. The female nurse threw a thin blanket over the straw and then turned around and went back into the hospital. I couldn't believe what was going on but I laid down on the pile of straw because I was exhausted and defeated. I could feel my babies kicking from the inside, as if they knew something was deeply wrong as well. I remember wishing that I was dead as night came, because it was so cold and the thin blanket did nothing to keep me warm. Only once or twice did a nurse come out to check on me, or offer me a sip of cold water.

When the sun began to rise it woke me up because it was right in my eyes. It was a bit foggy and everything was covered in a light frost. I was shivering violently and my lips were blue but I was much too weak to move and seriously thought I was going to die there. I suddenly felt some warm hands lift me up and I was tightly wrapped in a heavy blanket that smelled like barnyard animals. I opened my eyes and saw the Mennonite couple, who demanded to know right away why I was not in the hospital.

When they heard of my horrible treatment at the hospital, the Mennonite couple take me in their carriage back to the farm, insisting that I can give birth in the comfort of their home. I don't rememeber much else from the dream though I do know that I woke up before giving birth.