Dream: Mandala
7/15/2024
I had a dream last night of a girl who lived a perfect life. She looked to be somewhere between 12 to 15 years old. She had long black pigtails that nearly reached her shoulders. Her little brother looked to be around 8 or 10. Her parents were young, probably in their early 30s.
She and her parents are in the bleachers inside a massive gymnasium. The bleachers are crowded, all watching the match. It seems like combat of sorts, like wrestling or hand-to-hand. Her brother walks up to the mat, and the girl stands and cheers. Her mother is on the phone, attending to a work email. The dad urges the mother to put the phone away and support their son. She shakes her head. The work email is urgent.
The little boy looks up into the bleachers but sees only his sister cheering him on. He frowns. He can’t see or hear his parents arguing with each other. I feel it in my heart as he turns away from the crowd. Anger boils inside him, a jealous flame. His parents don’t pay him any attention. But if he can make this fight a spectacle, they might just notice him. He bites down on his mouthguard and balls his fists. The referee counts down, then sweeps a small flag between them. The boy jumps into motion. The girl watches his little brother with pride. He’s worked so hard to get this far. She’s impressed that he would try a sport so physically taxing. She smiles as she watches her brother close his arm around his opponent’s shoulder and throws them both to the ground.
The referee starts counting, hand pounding the air every second, raising an additional finger on-beat. The boy has his opponent pinned, but with just a few seconds to spare, the
opponent throws him off and slowly rises to his feet. The boy tries to knock down his opponent, sweeping at the feet. His opponent braces in a wide stance, and tanks the hit to his legs without flinching. His stalwart opponent has gone defensive, but it’s no matter. The boy can still take him down. He jumps behind his opponent and grabs throws his weight against the opponent. But his opponent doesn’t budge. It’s like he’s hitting a brick wall. The boy is at a loss. This is terrible. It seems the fight may end in stalemate. His opponent is dedicating everything to defense to avoid getting pinned. He’ll never get his parents attention at this rate.
The girl watches in anticipation. Her brother is really struggling against this opponent. But it doesn’t look like his opponent is doing anything. The opponent is just standing there, knees bent, legs wide, bracing for impact. He’s not trying to grab or push her brother. She frowns. It doesn’t seem very sporting to just stand there. Shouldn’t he be trying to fight back? She turns back to see what her parents think. They’re not watching the game. They’re both staring at her mother’s phone. The girl shakes her head. Then she returns her focus to the match. Her brother does something odd. He steps away from his opponent and starts punching and kicking the air, deliberate, practiced, precise. It’s his warm up routine. It’s odd that he’d be practicing it in the middle of a fight.
The boy breaks out of his kata and lunges at his opponent. The opponent raises his arms to block his face, but the boy wraps his arms around his opponent’s waist and lifts him into the air. The opponent twists and squirms, trying to break free from his grasp. The boy drops him to the ground and pins his arms and legs. The referee begins counting again. The girl opens and closes her fist in anticipation. The referee raises his flag. Victory! The girl jumps up and down, clapping and cheering. “Yeah, that’s my brother!” The boy looks up at the bleachers. Again, his parents aren’t there. He looks down with a sigh. The girl turns to see her parents’ reaction. But they’re not there. They must have left. Couldn’t they at least have told her when they left?
The girl’s excitement for the next hour is dampened by her parents’ disappearance. Her brother has a few more matches. She makes sure to cheer him on, but she isn’t really feeling it. After the matches are over, she climbs down from the bleachers and meets up with her brother. He is likewise in a sour mood. The girl can’t tell if he won or lost. She doesn’t really understand the sport. “Where mom and dad?” His brother asks her. She shrugs. “I don’t know, let’s go find them.” She leads him out the gymnasium and into the school’s hallways. They pass by the main entrance where crowds are squeezing through to leave. The girl thinks she has a pretty good idea of where dad is gonna be. Down the hall to the right of the entrance, she twists the handle on a door to the left. It opens into a nondescript, unlit classroom. Mom and dad are nowhere to be found. Instead, two men stand up to meet them:
One of which looks to be around 40, with a thick black leather jacket you might expect to see a motorcyclist wear, thick black hair combed flat against his head, billowing into a mane behind his neck and shoulders;
The other is at least 60 years old, he wears a thick jacket that looks like it’s made of denim jeans, but it’s paled and gray, worn from age, his thinning dark gray hair is like a backwards tiara, shooting up in the back of his head, then fading away as the ring draws towards the front.
“Grandpa? Uncle?” The girl frowns in confusion, “What are you two doing here?” The older one, the grandpa, speaks in his firm but low, quiet voice: “Your parents had to leave for a work emergency, so we’ve come to give you a ride home.” The girl looks down. She had worried that this might be the case. She nods and gives her grandpa and uncle a smile. “Thank you, you’re always there for us.” They head outside to the car. It’s dark. Night is dark, yes, but it’s really dark. Aside from the light bleeding through the main entrance of the school and the smattering of lamposts in the parking lot, it’s dark. Dark as in, no sight possible. Grandpa takes the driver’s seat, and uncle takes the passenger seat. The boy and girl sit in the back, the girl on the left just behind grandpa, and the boy on the right just behind uncle. As they drive, the car hums with a soft vibration that makes their seats feel tingly. The hum is quiet, only noticeable because the passengers are uncomfortably silent. It’s tense, palpable. Everyone can feel it in the air. They feel like they should say something, but they don’t know what. Finally, their uncle speaks up. “You know your parents love, they really do.” He says, “It’s just… life is tricky sometimes, and they can’t always control their work schedule. I know they want to spend more time with you, and someday they will.” It feels like he’s gonna say more, but there is silence for another minute or two.
“It’s okay, we know.” The girl says, “They came to match even if they couldn’t stay for the whole thing. We see their effort, even if it doesn’t go where we want it to.” The uncle sighs in relief, but the boy sighs in annoyance. No one seems to notice his sour attitude, but his grandpa catches his eye through the rear-view mirror. “Son, that match you had today… what sport is it?” The uncle turns to look at the grandpa, face twisted in confusion. “What?”
The grandpa chuckles to himself quietly, “I’m sorry, I meant grandson.” He clarifies, “What’d you play?” The boy stares out the window, watching trees and street signs pass. “It’s nothing.” The grandpa shakes his head. “Nothing?” He asks.
“No, not nothing.” The boy says, still staring out the window, “Just not important. It’s like wrestling or something like that.”
“Wrestling?” The grandpa says, voice pitch climbing with excitement, “Is it wrestling, or is it just “something like that?”
The boy, sensing his grandpa’s genuine interest, turns to look towards his grandpa. “Well, it’s not exactly wrestling.” He explains, “It’s martial arts, but it’s basically just wrestling with a different name.”
“Oh, really?” The grandpa asks with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “What’s the name?”
The boy grimaces in slight embarrassment. “Um, well, I, uh… I can’t remember.” He admits, “We usually just call it ‘wrestling.’”
The conversation between the boy and his grandpa seem to have lightened the mood, opening the way for more conversational topics. The uncle looks over his shoulder towards the girl. “So how are you doing in school these days?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “All A’s. Grades above 100%.” The uncle nods in approval. “Sounds like you’ve been working hard.”
The pleasant chatter continues as they turn onto a bumpy road. They slow. It’s a poorly marked railroad crossing. Suddenly, the railroad lights start blinking and bells start dinging. It startles the boy in the backseat. Grandpa stops the car a good distance from the crossing. But after a minute, the boy asks “Shouldn’t the train be here by now?” The girl also notices something odd. “I don’t feel the rumbling or rhythmic clang of metal from wheels, or the blaring of the horn as it approaches.” The grandpa and uncle tense up and exchange glances.
Metal clamps rise from the ground and lay hold upon the car. There is a terrible screeching of metal. Then the roof of the car is ripped off. The boy and girl cry out in fear. The uncle and grandpa leap from the car and help the kids out of the car. Footsteps echo on the pavement around them. Three thugs stride from the shadows. The grandpa and uncle stand on either side of the kids to protect them.
The battle is a chaotic flurry of kicks and slams. They don’t carry real weapons. A few of the thugs have miscellaneous objects that they wield as weapons, like a bike chain wrapped around a long twisted metal scrap. As the fight progresses, the environment itself changes. The boy and girl hide behind the car on the side nearest the train tracks, opposite of the thugs. The urban landscape is covered in snow and ice. The frigid winds throw the cold crystal flakes in your eyes, forcing you to squint.
The kids cower. They hear footsteps behind them. Another thug is trying to sneak up on them. The girl screams in fright. The boy curls into the fetal position. The grandpa cries out “No!” and breaks off into a sprint towards the kids, but the thug he is fighting whacks his legs with rebar, knocking him to the ground. Uncle is likewise occupied. There is no one to save them.
The scene changes. It’s the parents. They’re driving in a car. “Do you think they’ll be okay?” The mom asks. The dad smiles reassuringly, “They’ll be fine. At least we saw the beginning of the match this time.”
“I don’t know.” The mom says, “I worry that we spend too much time at work.” The father, however, shakes his head. “We spend plenty of time with them.” He says, “Besides, nothing is makes me feel quite so alive.” He lifts a clockwork mask that is little more than a thin sheet in his hands. Then he presses it to his face, it clicks into place on his face. There is a quiet ticking like you hear on a clock. Then he sticks his head out the window and fires a gun at something in front of them.
The scene returns to the kids and their predicament. The thug grabs the boy by the shoulder, pulling him up from fetal position. “Back off!” The girl says, trying and failing to be threatening, “He knows, um, wrestling. You’ll get beat up.” The thug shakes his head and chuckles to himself. The boy whimpers. The girl closes her fists and squeezes her eyes shut. She can’t believe this is happening to her.
It’s during this part of the dream where I stepped in. I didn’t like how it was going. I exited 3rd-person view where I had been experiencing the dream as a passive observer. I become the girl. I see from her eyes, but I also have her fear, inexperience, and 12-15 year-old girl-body. What could I possibly do in such a lowly vessel? I growl, my voice biting my throat in pain for going so deep in pitch. “Take your [REDACTED] hands off my brother!” I lung forward. He knocks me to the ground with a casual slap of his free hand. I’m surprised. I feel weightless in such a small body. The body wants to give up. To curl up and cry. But I’m no pitiful child. I’m no little girl. I urge the body up. I rise to my feet, a mad glimmer in my eyes. I run at him again. He swings his arm at me again, but this time I grab hold of his arm. He hits me. It hurts more than I feel that it should. I feel myself lose balance and fall. I tighten my grip, pushing my nails into his wrists. The man lets go of my brother and leans over, arm towards the ground, I’ve got it clawed in my grip.
He curses something sour, and raises the broken shaft of a garden hoe. I don’t give him a chance to act. As small and fragile as my body is, it has one thing it has to help, she loves her brother and looks after him perhaps even better than their parents. He swings the blade of the hoe at my head. I leap to my feet, arms clawing into his arms. I crack my arm against the saft of the garden hoe. It sends a flash of pain down my arm, but at least the metal blade didn’t hit me. I twist my arm leap up to slam into his shoulder. The garden hoe caught between both of our arms, now stuck uselessly between us, I slam my head into his. A mistake. He has far more mass than I. But he does seem off-balance from the sudden ferocity of my attack. I hurl my arms to the side, flinging into the snow. I notice my brother backing off into a pile of snow, trying to cover himself so that they can’t see him. I nod to him, then push myself off the thug. He puts his hand to his head in bewilderment. Then he grits his teeth. “Give it rest, girlie.” He says, deep voice dripping with malice, “It’ll be easier for you if you come quietly. It’s a long ride that’ll only be longer if you’ve got broken ribs.”
I shriek, an unearthly sound. A noise too guttural to be human. It kills my voice, it feels like my throat is gonna tear itself apart. I raise my fists in front of me. Then I notice the length of my nails. I grin. I open my fists, fingers arched and locked in claw shape. I rush him, flailing my arms towards his face. He raises his arm to block, so I grab his arm instead, biting my nails into his skin and twisting. I rip my arms into him again and again, the my fingers sting like death and I think my nails have broken into jagged pieces. There is blood and bits of skin clinging to my fingers.
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I don’t have time for this. Time to write in as few words as possible.
There is a girl. She is about 12-15 years old. She has a little brother. He looks to be 8-10 years old. She was at the bleachers with her parents, cheering her little brother at a sports match. During the match, her parents have to leave for a work emergency. So the kids’ uncle and grandpa come to give them a ride home once the game is over. Driving through the night, we stop at a railroad track. The blinking lights and ringing bells indicate a train coming. Metal clamps erupt from the ground and snap onto the car. One of the clamps tears the roof off the car. Thugs approach from the shadows. The uncle and grandpa fight back to protect the kids. The landscape twists and changes during the fight. The urban city becomes an ice cavern buried in several feet of snow. The little boy hides in a pile of snow. The girl joins the uncle and grandpa to fight the thugs. Both the uncle and the grandpa are felled in the battle, and the girl is only barely able to defeat the last remaining thug but takes great injury herself.
Then she calls out to her brother, telling him that it is safe to come out. But he doesn’t come out. She is worried, and begins digging through snow shouting his name. Then we switch to his view. We find that he is deep underwater. But in the distance, he swears he can see light. He swims towards the light the best he can, but it’s so cold and he can’t breathe. Finally, he surfaces, but the only land in sight is an island of ice floating in the water. He wonders if he is in Antarctica.
He climbs up onto the iceberg and makes his way into a cave in a mountain of ice. To his surprise, he finds evidence of human presence. An open leather bag, mostly empty save for a few miscellaneous supplies. He finds this cave continues as a tunnel leading deeper into the ice. He warily steps forward, following the tunnel.
The scene returns to the girl, who has found the tunnel that the boy dug his way into the pile of snow. But he’s not here. She’s not sure what happened to him or where he went. But it’s getting cold. She can’t stay. She is very distraught as she faces the choice of giving up the search for her brother or leaving to find warmth and save her life. She decides to save herself, as she knows she can’t find her brother and is pretty sure he’s not here.
She walks off. She slips on some ice. She stands up and finds herself in a rocky cave. No ice in sight. No snow either. However, there is a metal humanoid on the ground. It’s old, rusted, and in pieces. She pulls out the chestplate to see intertwining wires with. She shakes her head and throws it to the ground. She continues through the rocky cavern. She meets another robot. This one is intact. It talks to her and they agree to help each other escape. They find a way out to the surface, where there is a sandy beach at sunset.
Then we return to watching the boy explore a tunnel in the ice. He finds two people in there. It’s his parents. They are surprised that he is there, but glad nonetheless. They decide to all gather together. They are reunited. It’s all great. Except that they’re missing his sister.
The next scene, the parents, the sister, and the brother are all in a secret hideout underground. It seems to me that it is probably some sort of sealed bunker deep in the earth. They might still be in the iceberg, but there is no way for me to know.
The sister is discussing how perfect her life is. She gets straight A grades. She talks about how their parents spend a lot of time with them now that they are hiding together. They’re not busy with work and they don’t have to worry about responsibilities tearing them apart. The girl next to her nods in understanding. “Yeah, it must be hard having a perfect life.”
“Yeah, you don’t know the half of it, Mandala.” The sister continues to complain about her perfect life, “My brother is jealous of me. I thought everything would be fine if our parents gave him more attention, but my life is just too perfect for that.” Then the sister frowns, eyes furrowed in confusion. “Wait a second, who are-” She turns to face Mandala, but there is no one there, “-you?”
Later, the sister is pacing in her room. “Okay, it’s okay. It’s either an intruder or a hallucination. It’s probably just a hallucination, but you’re not insane. You’ve just been underground for too long.” She says to herself, trying to comfort herself.
“You’re not crazy.” Mandala says. The sister turns and sees her. “No, no, no.” The sister says, “You’re not real. You’re just a voice in my head.”
Mandala frowns. “I’m not real? What makes you so sure?” Mandala asks, “In fact, are you certain that you are real? Or are you a figment of my imagination.”
“No, no, no!” The sister whimpers, “Dad! Help!”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A new voice says another female voice, low, old, deep. The sister turns to see a woman shrouded in black robes with a tall black conical hat. Her eyes and most of her face are obscured by the brim of her hat tilted down to shroud her in mystery.
“W-what?” The sister cries, “Dad! Please, help!”
The woman clicks her tongue “Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. They always have to learn the hard way “ The woman says, “I am Druid, and I advise against drawing undue attention to our presence.”
The sister’s dad barges in. “What’s wrong?” The sister describes what happened. How two intruders have appeared to her. The father is certain no one could have gotten in, but just to be sure, he goes over the defense measures and shows them to the sister to put her mind at ease. However, with all this defined, she still has the problem that she is hallucinating people to appear to her. Her father theorizes that either she is haunted by a spirit or simply insane. The solution to a haunting, he says, is to remove anything old that may have belonged to someone who used to live here. If she is insane, he doesn’t really have a solution for that. So to start, they try to cure possible hauntings by destroying old things. The first they destroy are the old blue balloons. The balloons are shaped like the number nine or what is seven. I guess it doesn’t really matter. But they destroyed the balloons. Later, the Druid appeared, angry at her attempts to get rid of her. She hurls great balls of fire at the sister. The sister flees from the room, barely escaping without harm. She still doesn’t know if the Druid is real or not, but she doesn’t want to test it. The Druid commands power of fire and lightning and Mandala seems harmless but is no less unsettling. Even in hiding, the girl’s perfect life brings her misery.