Taken by the Kraken (2020 dream)

*The scene about poem and the old man at the park bench are inserted from a different dream from around the same time. For some reason I thought it fit there nicely.

**I dreamt the whole airport scene at the end the same night but it happened before the Kraken/underwater story. The scene of walking on the terminal walkway under the water, however, is part of the Kraken dream.

There was a port town in Maine called Portland. In that town lived a man with whom Poseidon had a bone to pick. That man was forbidden from appearing at the ports, but he ignored that. He stood overlooking the ocean from the second floor of the big red lodge, at his usual time, late in the evening when the waves were rough and choppy. Twice the Kraken appeared to him to take him down. The 30-foot monster surfaced its head and sent a long tentacle around him, pulling him down from the window and carried him a long ways through the abyss. For at least a mile he dangled behind, at the monster’s full speed, all the way into the nearest town, a town down in the ocean where (so he was lead to expect) he would be eaten as punishment.

            But this happened twice. The first time it happened, the Kraken let him go, to walk all the way back to the surface and back to Portland. We don’t know why he was released. As I describe what happened the second time, it will seem either that the Kraken couldn’t bring himself to kill the man when it finally came to it, or that he never intended to kill, but only to scare him straight. In any case, it was thought the man would take it as a mercy and that he wouldn’t be so foolish to return again to the ports.

            But he returned again to the ports. A second time the Kraken sent and wrapped his extendable tentacle, dragging him forthwith to the town down under. The monster did not need to consider an appropriate place to settle down for his meal, since it was understood by the townspeople that the Kraken would have his way, and he, in return, normally left them in peace.

            It is only this second time I know for sure what happened when they got to town. He told me to stay put and would return to eat me. I had better not leave, I was told. So he left, I waited a bit, and then I left. Simple as that. Either he thought his severity would deter me from disobeying this command—an effective method as the past had surely shown—as if there was any threat he could add to eating me. Or maybe he wanted it to go unsaid that I could leave and he would mercifully turn a blind eye, but to know and to feel that he had every bit the same power over my life, which power he might not withhold next time. Or he was squeamish about killing me and wanted me to leave without him having to admit it, thinking it prouder that his carelessness than weakness set me loose.

            The townspeople sought asylum for me and a kind couple in their 30s took me in. So I wandered openly in the town as inconsiderate of Poseidon’s watch as ever (though I say this only of my behavior, since I felt the likelihood of another confrontation and sometimes wondered to myself why I was being so careless).

They showed me around town. My tour was spent as much outside as inside, since so many of the buildings were connected, probably having been gradually expanded on over the centuries. It was safe to walk outside in the water, but people often liked to stay dry, so there were both outdoor walkways and glass tunnels for indoor walkways. I would call the place either a small city or a large town; it was definitely geographically large and bustling with people, but not with tall buildings. Or maybe it was a big city, but one could easily forget that because of its quaint style. It must have been built by northern Europeans—maybe the Dutch—judging by the charming architecture, and founded before coming to the New World, because so many of the buildings looked precolonial. They kept everything in good shape, but not immaculate. Bold, dark greens and reds made up a large part of the color scheme. Some occasional orange and yellow houses stood out among them, which had clearly once been much brighter.

I sometimes couldn’t believe how much they could show me without us ever going outside. We went through an incredible labyrinth of hallways and stairways to get to my hosts’ apartment, passing people coming and going all along the way from their homes and from shops.

When we finally took a rest at their apartment, I was treated hospitably and given plenty of privacy. I found myself reflecting on childhood memories I hadn’t thought of in a long time. Oh, remember how we used to bicker when Ed, Edd, Eddy and I tried starting up a band. And Kevin’s discouraging remarks didn’t help either! Ah, but we were just kids; there were good times in all that too. Oh, and remember how I used to ride in the sun, when I was just a toddler, on those heely shoes. I remember wearing a plain white t-shirt and shorts; I wasn't self-conscious of my body. I didn’t exactly feel invincible, but when I compare those days to today, I was pretty carefree back then.

~

The next day, my hosts understood that I wanted a day just for my own carefree exploration of the town, and they graciously let me go. My hosts were good company, but they respected my privacy. They took no offense if I didn’t take their recommendations, although they did give good recommendations.

I didn’t intend to explore a great portion of the town; I visited a few shops, but I preferred to walk slowly and sit and take in the beautiful sights. The sun shone so clearly on the town I just about forgot we were underwater. After some time, on the park bench, I became powerfully inspired to write a poem; it really went on and on, each line coming to me so fast. These were long stretches of religious verses, inspired by Isaiah. I knew just what to write next as soon as I concluded a stanza. (I wish I knew what happened to that poem!) I was so peacefully immersed in this poem, I was nearly unaware of the fact that such a blessing had fallen on me, and time escaped me.

A few old men sat on the park bench across the path from me. One of them was eying me with—I don’t want to say suspicion or even wariness, but with a curiosity, that it was strange to see a young man writing poetry in the middle of the park in the middle of the day. I didn't know if he disapproved. Probably not. But I imagined him thinking, “What’s this? You’re writing...poetry? Just what kind of poem could you be writing?” He was a rough, honest looking old man, the kind of man who worked hard all his life and had to work later into his life than a man should. Maybe he was on a lunch break from work.

He approached me and asked, with this wary curiosity, or whatever it was, to see my poem. I showed him, pointing to the last stanza I had written. For some reason, out of the four lines of the stanza, he read only the first and the third. He read these two lines aloud in his raspy Greek accent, in a choppy meter, two syllables at a time:

 

The earth is drunk with wine,

            …

Therefore, do not judge

            …

 

He handed back the paper giving me a small nod. I couldn’t tell if it seemed meaningful to him or if he it reminded him that he didn't like poetry.

~ 

Somehow my life just needed to take a good breath, but after a few days it was time to leave. My hosts escorted me to the airport (or whatever it was which took people from here to the airports back on land). First we went back through the precolonial hallways and then, quite seamlessly, I found myself walking through one of these fancy contemporary glass hallways, which told me we were on a straight path to the terminal.

I could see the deep blue ocean through the archway above me, reaching about twenty feet up, but I could see the fishes more clearly through the floor. Actually, I started to notice, this was because the floor was not a glass walkway showing the ocean beneath us, but actually the walkway was on top of a giant aquarium tank of sorts. But not really a tank—the whole lower two thirds of the room (about forty feet) was a giant tank of water encased in “water foam,” so I was told, upon which we walked. We walked on top of this slightly squishy, mostly transparent surface; it was just a couple inches of water which was somehow in a physical state not quite solid, not quite liquid, but a semisolid resembling Styrofoam, making it able to contain that whole large volume of liquid water, forty feet in depth, twenty feet in width, and the length of the entire hallway which stretched at least a mile. This surface we walked on was of course much stronger than ice and its foamy texture only slightly obscured our view of the fish swimming by from beneath, all swimming in the direction of the town and away from the terminals. Everyone I saw here was walking toward the terminals. There must have been a different hallway going from the terminals to the town.

We delighted at a school of zebra-striped fish, each adult at least six feet around. Some were curious and looked up at us while we looked down at them. I knelt down to see the face of one. It flared it’s teeth to me, some serious horse teeth! Actually, wow…teeth exactly like a horse...on a fish. It wasn’t just the stripes that gave them the name “zebra fish”.

As we went on, the walkway gradually mounded up in the middle, so that there was a hill of sorts almost ten feet higher in the middle than on the left and right, which continued in that shape all the way down the hall. I continued walking on the lower right end, walking in a slightly awkward, lopsided way since the sides were no longer quite flat.

Perhaps we were getting near the terminal and other hallways were converging, because I was starting to see more of other travelers.  We went on further and some curious things, signs at least, began to show up on the top of that hill in the middle, so I went up to look, continuing to press forward.

I stopped when I saw a little billboard up on the hill; it had only one poster. My brother Stevie and I were trying to figure out what it was. “It looks like a church,” he said. Yes, it did look like a church, a kind of bubbly cartoon drawing of one, a small purple building, but with a tall and skinny bell tower which got wider at the top. Yes, it seemed like it was a flyer for a rather nonspecific Christian church. Was it an event? We still wondered. It took some time of searching before we noticed there were words. Again, Stevie noticed just before I did, that there were words underneath the church. “Oh, it’s a fertility ritual,” he said. That’s all the words we could find on it: “Fertility Ritual”. We wondered what that could mean; it did not seem to match the picture.

We looked around to see if there were any other posters which might give us more information. Just then, a middle-aged man walked by with a yellowish-beige shirt with the same picture and the same words on it. He had receding white hair and sunglasses; he looked, I want to say for some reason, like someone who listens to light classic rock, like Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Eagles. Well, the same thing was on his shirt, so he must have some idea of what this poster was about. Approaching him, but before even asking the question, he know what we wondered about. “It’s philosophy!” he replied, in a tone showing that he wanted to dismiss any misconceptions that this was some mere new age fancy or anything less than ‘philosophy’. “Noooo, it’s not a fertility ritual…” “Ohh,” we said, nodding as he walked on, but also wondering, Okay, so then why’s it say, “Fertility Ritual”? So that didn’t answer anything, but we didn’t persist.

 

I made it safely back to land. There were so many layovers I lost track of where I’d come from and where I was. I could hardly keep awake. It felt as if some guiding providence had ensured I arrive at each destination, since I seemed only to have enough alertness to attend to my immediate surroundings.

Finally, at the darkest part of the morning, I met up with my dad and stepmother. They gave me a cheerful greeting. “Congratulations!” they said, hugging me and giving my shoulder a squeeze. “How do you feel, college graduate?” So much had happened these last few weeks, especially these last few days, I almost forgot I had graduated college. And somehow, I didn’t feel I had accomplished anything noteworthy. It felt weird being congratulated, as if they were celebrating only my passing another semester; I had to ask myself, in fact, whether that was not the case.

They had some plans for celebration later, but for the moment we were all in need of a little bit of food to hold us over. We soon came upon a McDonalds in terminal and decided to stop there. We took a table, then I excused myself and headed to the restroom.

I needed to give my nose a blow and it might not have been a simple one, so I preferred to do it in a stall. Annoyingly, the men’s room was full of rough and chatty fellows, people I didn’t quite want hanging around as I’m using the restroom, the kind of people who will bang on the door and say, ‘What’s the hold up in there!’ It was packed—sheesh—and they were noisy. Good thing I only needed to blow my nose.

As I stood inside the stall facing the door, I noticed that the roughest one of them—a group leader—was standing facing my stall. He was a grey and grungy character from what I had seen. And he had a whole gang of skinny, squirty guys, all similar-looking, with red spikey hair and always snickering; they were just about hovering around him and me.

I had hardly begun blowing my nose when this guy starts banging on the door. Impatient! He bangs again and his minions are bumping all around, pressing in on the thin metal stall. It’s as if they’re going to overflow through the cracks. “If you’re too afraid to go with other people around, then just get out, man! Don’t gimme that, wasting my time!” His friends are all a bubble with snickers. Now he’s actually looking over the stall door; like, actually over it! A few of the others too, jumping up and down, like, ‘Yeah, what’s this guy up to? What’s this guy up to?’ Can you believe this? You’d think you could see at this point that I’m facing the door blowing my frickin’ nose. Are you kidding me?

Well, he rips open the door and pulls me out, but I don’t let him switch places with me yet; I push just as he pulls, leaning in at his face, and I say to him, holding my tissue between our faces, “Hey! I was blowing my nose!” He looks slightly embarrassed for a second, but moves on to the stall and I move on too. Goodness gracious, do these guys just hang out here all days?

When I went back to the McDonald's table, they had prepared a mini-celebration—as if making a lowkey gesture that there would be a bigger celebration later yet they didn't want to greet me without some kind of celebration—which was about as much as I could attend to, as tired as I was. They bought a couple things from McDonald's but had brought a few things from outside too. They poured us each a small glass of wine and we shared a miniature cake, a golden-brown cylindrical cake not much bigger than a coffee mug, two-layered with a cream filling between and another think layer of chocolate crumbs at the bottom. It was like a slick-looking piece of minimalist art, pretty fancy, and its box was fancy too, with that same golden-brown color, shiny and metallic. It was really kind and I could see that my stepmother wanted me to feel appreciated.

---

October 2020. 

* The middle poem scene is inserted from a slightly earlier dream.