The Rescue Dream

I was a younger person, male, bearded. I’d just arrived in a large green valley. Trees climbed the valley slopes. Pleasant weather welcomed us. At the valley’s floor, a river met an ocean.

I’d come to the valley leading people to safety. Now, just after arriving, I was told that they had to be taken away because the valley wasn’t safe any longer. After venting about the change and my belief that the new arrivals wouldn’t be happy, I set about looking for them and informing them the valley was now dangerous. Some were skeptical, forcing me to keep explaining, “I understand, but something has changed and it’s not safe for you here.” Reluctantly, person by person, family by family, people agreed to leave until I was down to one person.

This man was a fisherman. I saw him fishing down on the shore. He wore a red and black flannel shirt, a khaki fishing vest with matching floppy hat, and blue jeans, and was smoking a pipe. As I prepared to go down to him, I saw him get hooked — by his own hook. He was smiling about that, declaiming it as, “No big deal.” Then something began dragging him up and down the beach, back and forth. I have no idea what had him, but it used the hook and fishing line. As I gaped at the spectacle, an old man calmly walked along the beach. Coming to the line, he stuck a stake in the ground and wrapped the line around it a few minutes. The line went taut, stopping the fisherman’s crazy ride.

Dream end.