The Rock Dream

This is a short dream, or more explicitly, my memory of this one is brief. I have a sense that there was more dream but disturbances in the force truncated remembering more substance.

This was a neat part, though. Truging up a hill, I was in a deep twilight, one that curtailed light, limiting what I saw and knew. A weight was on me and my shoulders, back, and leg muscles were all aching. Weariness was slowing me. Each step was shorter and the time between steps was longer. I was thinking, I might not make it, and what should I do if I didn’t?

Taking a longer break to rest and rally my will, I looked almost straight up. Above me was a jagged rend in the darkness, displaying a galaxy splashed with red and blue swaths, a surprising and breathtaking sight.

Almost immediately after seeing the galaxy, I was in another place. Confusion punched through me about the change. I staggered a little, feeling myself off balance.

Then a man was talking to me, an older, baritone voice. I whipped my glances around, trying to understand who and where he was, missing what he was saying. When he paused, I asked, “What?”

Impatience glazing his inflections, he said, “I said, this is your new rock. We’re replacing your old rock.”

Bewilderment ascended in me. “What are you talking about?” But in parallel to me asking that, I saw a line of boulders in spotlights ahead of me. All were pretty large but the first one, an light grey ovoid, sucked in my attention. “What rocks?”

“You’ve been dragging a huge rock, a boulder, up the mountain. We think it’s time you get a break, so we’re giving you this one to drag for a while.”

“That little gray one?”

“Yes.” The impatience flared. “That’s the one.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t even know I was dragging a rock.”

“Dragging, carrying it,” the other said. “Do you want it?”

While that exchange went on, I took in a huge black monolith to one side, bending backwards to see its top. “Is that the rock I had?” I knew it was. Rock was a pale noun for the enormous piece towering over me. “I’ve been dragging that?”

“Yes, that’s your burden.”

Laughing, I was already answering, “I’ll take the grey one, then, sure. That’s a lot smaller.” I was thinking, that’ll make it all much, much easier.

“Okay, go ahead, then, take it, but you should now, it will grow. Burdens always do.”