When Dreams Wake You.

Last night I had a dream:

I was living in an international neighborhood. There were a bunch of town home style houses, and we had just moved into one of them. Although all the houses were connected at their sides, our house was much larger and nicer than any one else's. Large glass windows, a huge library stocked with books, so much space I wondered how I would fill it. People were flocking to our home, staring through our large windows. In their faces I saw many different things. In some I saw awe, others curiosity, others resentment, and others a confused mixture of the three. I held my children close. I wanted to be polite, but I was a little scared of some of them. I wanted them to go away, to let me finish unpacking and setting up my house. Why can't they just leave and come back when I'm ready? I thought to myself.

As I walked down the street to get our car, I felt really out of place. Out side of my home I did not feel very welcome or at all comfortable, especially while an old lady who sat on the curb stared me down. We got in the car and headed some place (I can't recall where we were going). As we were driving I saw a body in the road ahead of us. I screamed for Aaron to stop the car. It looked like a boy, perhaps from Africa, had been hit by a car and left to die. I was scared. My first thought was, We didn't do that did we? And relief when I realized we didn't. Then we sat there awhile. We talked about how awful it was. The boy lifted his head revealing a mutated face, then laid back down. Was he going to get up? Get out of the way? These questions were asked, pondered. Suddenly panic hit me. Why weren't we doing anything? "Call 911!" I screamed at Aaron and whoever else was in the car. I suddenly realized I was waiting for Aaron to get out of the car and do something, and once I realized he had no intention of doing so, I was mad. I was also scared. I didn't want to see the boy's injured body up close, it was terrifying enough from a distance. So I started screaming at everyone, enraged that no one was doing anything for this poor boy. I can't remember anything after that.

It didn't hit me until I woke up from the dream that I didn't think to do anything about it myself. In the dream I had justified not calling 911 because I couldn't find my phone, but I don't remember even looking for it. I justified not getting out of the car because I was scared and I felt the other people in the car were more qualified. I was outraged by how little they seemed to care. Yet I did nothing myself.