Awaken

by Denese Shelton

  “Dorothy, we’re on a bus, and we’re almost at our stop. Don’t you remember?”

  Sierra looked out the window and watched the farmland, empty pastures, and dirt roads pass her by. She then started to take a good look at the woman staring at her as if she had two heads. The woman’s hair was cut into a small, neat Afro, and she was dressed in a yellow cotton shirtwaist dress with an A-line skirt. Sierra looked down and noticed that she herself was wearing something similar, with the exception that her dress was black and white.

  Sierra knew what was going on. She was dreaming. She also knew that just like all the dreams before, it would start with fear and end with violence. She began to feel a little hysterical. She wanted to scream, but the woman was already looking at her as if she was one straitjacket away from the nuthouse.

  I need to try and wake myself up.

  Sierra lowered her hand and began to pinch her thigh as hard as she could, hard enough that the pressure from her fingertips brought tears to her eyes, and then she began to chant in her head, Wake up, wake up. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She waited for the soothing smell of pumpkin spice that would indicate that she was back in her living room, surrounded by her scented candles—but all she could smell was the stench of too many bodies on a bus without air.

  She kept waiting. Finally, her companion took her by the shoulders and shook her.

  “Dorothy, you’re really starting to scare me,” she said. “Are you sick? Do you need some water? Please don’t do this to me. You know I need you. You’re the brave one.”

  Sierra could hear the panic in the woman’s voice, and she wanted to reassure her, but she honestly didn’t know what to do. She wanted to wake up before this bus got to its destination. She looked around the bus again and saw faces of varying ethnicities staring ahead and out of the windows in a daze. She grew curious. For now, she would see where this dream was going.

  “What’s your name again?” she asked the woman in the yellow dress.

  The woman looked at her with that same confused look and took her hand. “Dorothy, I’m Mary. We’ve been best friends for all our lives. You know that. Now can you please pull it together? Because you’re really scaring me.”

  “That’s right, Mary,” Sierra said. “I’m sorry. I guess I’ve been real tired, and when you woke me, I forgot who I was for a second. That’s all.”

  Mary didn’t look particularly convinced but seemed to decide to let the matter go for now. No doubt she would ask Dorothy about it again later on. Right now, it was more important that they were both prepared for the challenge that lay ahead.

  “We’re almost there. We need to start praying and make sure that we’re prepared for spiritual warfare.” Mary reached for Dorothy’s hands and closed her eyes. Dorothy closed her eyes as well, and listened as Mary started to pray for their safety.

  “Dear God, we come to you as humbly as we know how, just saying thank you, Jesus, for allowing us to get this far and to see another day. We just ask, dear Lord, as we embark on this journey, that you be with us, oh Lord. Lord God, protect us and keep us. Lord, you said that you would send your angels to keep us lest we dash our feet against a stone. Lord God, we ask that you do exactly that. And, Lord, let us feel the strength of the Holy Spirit inside our hearts, our minds, and our souls.” Mary tightened her grip on Sierra’s hands. “Lord, let us be warriors, but warriors of peace, Father. Lord, you said that faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains, and Lord, I believe that. Keep us safe, oh God. Keep us brave, and, Lord God, keep us in perfect peace. I love you, Father. Thank you, Jesus. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen, Amen, and Amen.”

  As Mary finished her prayer, Sierra could see that her eyelashes were moist from the tears that she didn’t seem to realize were falling. Sierra’s eyes, too, were wet with tears. She was moved by the prayer and realized that she recognized it as one similar to the kind her mother used to pray after her dad died and she’d had a bad day. Pearl would pray, and Sierra would close her eyes and listen. Sierra hadn’t heard anything like it in a while.

  She took a good look at Mary. She was of medium build, with rich, dark skin the color of a milk-chocolate bar, about the same as her own. Mary’s eyes were slanted downward, as if in a frown. The irises were the color of brown quartz. Her fingernails were nubs, with the fingertip hanging over the nail. She was definitely a nail biter.

  “We’ll be at the station in ten minutes!” the bus driver called out.

  Sierra felt queasy in the pit of her stomach. She was starting to understand what might take place when she got to this bus station.

  This dream was different than the rest. Never had the dreams been this specific. In the past, the settings had always been some unknown plantation or anonymous forest. She’d never had a name in any of the other dreams. She’d never had a friend.

  This is absurd. This is absolutely ridiculous, and I need to wake up right now. Please, somebody, come over, ring the doorbell, call me. Wake me.

  But none of those things happened, and as the bus pulled into the station, she felt a little faint at the thought of what was to come. And as she felt her palms, moist with perspiration caused not just by the heat of the cramped bus but also by nerves, she realized that someone had her right hand in a death grip. It was Mary.

  Mary looked straight ahead at nothing at all. Her profile was that of a warrior. No smile, no frown, just determination etched in the lines of her face.

  The only indications of Mary’s nervousness were the tiny beads of sweat that started at her hairline and rolled down her skin like condensation on a glass of ice-cold water and the grip she had on Sierra’s hand. As Sierra watched Mary, she remembered that Mary had said that Dorothy, in fact, was the brave one. But right now, “Dorothy” felt nervous enough to pee in her pants and allow the itchy, warm feeling to distract her from what lay ahead.

  She looked back again at Mary as the bus came to a stop. She realized that no matter what else happened in this dream, she would have to face the challenge outside of this bus. She pinched her thigh with her free hand one more time before relinquishing the hope that she could wake up from this dream before anything bad happened. But then another thought occurred to her: I’m dreaming. This is my dream. Perhaps I can will myself to be in another place, a happy place.

  She concentrated on trying to change the location of the dream. She closed her eyes and thought of a tropical island. Nothing happened. The bus driver opened the doors, and she sighed.

  She and Mary were with the first group of people to exit the bus. There was no turning back now. As she stepped off the bus, she could smell the oppressive, thick air. It was stiflingly hot. The sun beat down on her skin like laser beams. She could feel her own hairline giving way to pools of sweat that trickled their way down her face.

  The station looked abandoned. No passengers were waiting for their bus to arrive. No drivers were waiting in their own buses. There were no vagrants, no loiterers. There was no movement.

  As all the other passengers filed out of the bus behind Sierra, she could feel her stomach drop to the floor, and once again that sick feeling of uneasiness took over.

  It was only when the last group of passengers had left the bus that Sierra heard a loud stampede coming from both her left and her right. She couldn’t see anything as the red earth of the station floor was kicked up, blocking her view.

  She was confused. Were they going to be attacked by animals? All the passengers who had just exited the bus formed a tight ball around each other. Then the dust began to clear, and Sierra could see the herd of angry red and white faces looking at her. They held bricks, sticks, and two-by-fours. They were chanting something. She couldn’t make out the words as the commotion around her began to take shape. Her fellow passengers were trying to crowd back onto the bus, but the doors were shut, and the driver had disappeared. They had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. They would have to face the angry pack.

  Sierra could finally make out what th
ey were chanting. It was “Kill them all, kill them all.”

  Sierra winced as a tree fell down on top of her head. She looked up; she didn’t remember seeing any trees around the bus station. And then the second blow came raining down, and she realized it wasn’t a tree but a fist. She fell to the ground as the pain gave way to a constant hammering inside her head. She put her hands over her face to block the blows, and to wipe away the sweat that was stinging her eyes.

  More hits rained down. Sierra opened her eyes briefly and saw the blood covering her hands. She closed her eyes again and tried to protect her head with both her frail arms. Her attackers, seemingly tired of not being able to hit her in the face, began to kick her in the stomach and stomp on her legs and hands. Sierra’s breath caught painfully; her lungs weren’t getting enough air. She silently began to pray.

  This was a dream, but the pain she was feeling was real.

  Sierra and Mary had prayed for strength in spiritual warfare, and Sierra was now wondering whether they should have prayed for protection from physical warfare as well.

  My ribs, my nose—are they broken? she wondered with dread.

  The last violent kick broke something inside of her and she moved one of her hands down to her chest to try and hold that broken piece inside. As she moved her hand down her body, she realized that she was no longer holding Mary’s hand.

  Panic set in. Where was Mary? Sierra tried to open her eyes, but every time she tried she was met with a blinding, searing pain.

  I have to try and find Mary, she thought, feeling a sudden protectiveness of the young woman, akin to what she would feel if she lost her sister. She needed to find her friend who had so much faith. She gathered herself together and prepared to take the pain when the light would once again deliver agony.

  She could still hear the violent noises in the background. She could hear the sound of bones cracking and people crying out in torment. She could hear the roar of the angry crowd still yelling out obscenities, the hate coming down so swiftly and violently that she was convinced the words must be catching fire in the air. She could feel that angry heat, searing on her cheek. Sierra took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

  Chapter 5

  Sierra looked around her and realized that she was on the living room floor in her home. The blinding headache was still there. She put her hand to her face and felt a moistness around her nose. She wiped the liquid from her nose and confirmed that it was, in fact, blood. She tried to get up, but she felt as if she had been kicked in the ribs. And hadn’t she? She had never heard of a dream that made your body sore.

  Her phone lay beside her on the floor and she swiped the screen, unlocking it. Not only had she slept through the night but, according to the screen, she had slept through most of Sunday. It was five o’clock in the afternoon already. She had been asleep for almost eighteen hours.

  Dang, she thought. She had missed church. Her intention had been to go this weekend. Since the dreams started, her desire to go to church had returned.

  She slowly pulled herself up so that her back was against the couch. She looked out the window and observed the orange tinge in the sky that signaled day giving way to night. Darkness still came early.

  Using the arm of the couch for support, Sierra slowly pulled herself to her feet and gradually made her way to the bathroom, her head tilted back to slow the drip of blood from her nose. She looked in the mirror and realized that she felt worse than she looked. The only physical remnant from her dream appeared to be the bloody nose that she was presently plugging up with tissue. Her face looked normal, bearing none of the telltale signs of having taken a severe beating.

  Then she noticed a throbbing below her left eye. She observed no swelling, but she did see redness and tenderness around her tiny scar. Her ribs still throbbed and so did her head, but they bore no bruises, no bumps. Other than the bloody nose, there was no material evidence indicating that what she’d experienced was anything other than a dream—or, more accurately, a nightmare.

  As she stood staring at her reflection in the mirror, she tried to make sense of it all. “I mean, I know that dreams usually have some deeper meaning, but what could these dreams— what does this dream—really mean?” she pondered out loud.

  She checked her nose and realized that it was no longer actively bleeding. She pulled the tissue out.

  She felt heavy and groggy, the repercussions of sleeping for long hours at a time, but she just couldn’t bring herself to lie back down. She left the bathroom and went to the living room to hop on her laptop and do some research. As she reentered the living room, she noticed something that had eluded her attention before: the light on her cell phone was blinking, indicating a waiting voicemail.

  She unlocked her screen and accessed her messages. The voicemail was from her mom, asking her to call when she got a chance.

  Sierra sat down in her cozy loveseat, and stared at her computer screen. What, exactly, was she looking up?

  She began to look up dreams on a search engine but found twelve thousand entries on her first query. She decided to narrow her search to dreams and changes in the physical body. She clicked on a couple of sites that had something to do with dreams manifesting themselves in the physical and quickly realized that these sites dealt mostly with sexual dreams and reactions.

  “No, not what I’m looking for,” she whispered.

  She kept scrolling down until she got to a page dealing with sleepwalking. She began to read and realized that sleepwalking-related injuries could occur, especially if someone got out of bed and started to walk around.

  I don’t remember walking or running anywhere. Not that she would, though; according to the site, people didn’t normally remember the episode in the morning. And she had awoken on the floor, after all. She’d just assumed that she’d fallen off the couch, but it was possible that she’d moved around her place and caused the bloody nose by running into the wall. But wouldn’t a blow like that wake me up? She thought so, but she didn’t really know.

  Sierra recalled how in the past she had hardly remembered her dreams in the morning. These new dreams were different. Whenever she awoke, she could remember in vivid detail every single moment, just as clearly as if it were happening presently. It was as if someone was playing a movie reel inside her head.

  A shiver ran down her spine at the memory of the last dream. And then she remembered a biography she’d read in high school that was reminiscent of her dream. A book about the Freedom Riders.

  She typed the words into the keyboard, and a slew of websites about African American history came up. She clicked on the first site, and the write-up told her that the Freedom Riders were students and adults who rode buses into the South to test the desegregation laws that were passed by Congress.

  She clicked through to another website and a picture of a bus on fire reminded her of a book she’d bought for an African American history class in college. She put her laptop on the table and got up slowly from the loveseat, careful not to cause her sore ribs more pain, and went into her second bedroom. The bookcase in this bedroom held all her books, old and new. She searched the shelves until she found her old textbook, and then she flipped to the table of contents. Yes, now she remembered: the Freedom Riders were in the chapter about the civil rights movement.

  The journey had begun as an attempt to test the Supreme Court’s decision that segregated seating of interstate bus and rail stations was unconstitutional. The Southern states at the time were still uncooperative. As they traveled through the south, the riders were met with intimidation and violence. As Sierra read on she noted, the violence and lack of protection for the riders and drivers were among the challenges that threatened to end the freedom rides. However, college students and other volunteers, continued the rides , refusing to let them end because of threats and violence. And so it went. Young and old had risked their lives in order to ensure that laws were upheld and rights were given.

  As Sierra read on, her admiration for t
he courage and passion of the individuals who had participated in the protest grew. But she still couldn’t understand why she would have a dream about the riders, let alone experience it as if she was actually one of the protesters. It just didn’t make sense.

  She returned the book to the shelf and walked back to the living room, pondering what she’d just learned. The people who had participated in those rides were courageous. She didn’t feel as though she was a particularly courageous person. Then Sierra remembered Mary from her dream—Mary, so full of faith. Sierra felt as if she really didn’t have any of that, either.

  She sank into her loveseat. That’s my real problem; I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve tried so hard to be successful, but am I? I’m almost thirty years old, and still I have absolutely no idea what would truly make me happy.

  “What have I been doing with my life?” When she asked herself the question aloud, she felt a shiver run through her body.

  As she allowed her inner monologue to vent, she began to feel overwhelmed and her heart started to beat out of rhythm, faster and faster. Breathing was becoming difficult. She was having a panic attack.

  She hadn’t had one since she was in college. But since she had been having these dreams for the last couple of months, she had started to feel her body responding to the stress.

  She let herself float off the loveseat and onto the floor. She grabbed her chest, and as she leaned over, trying to calm her breathing, she decided to pray again. She was still unsure if God was listening, but more and more she felt compelled to try. She had gotten it into her head that maybe God was angry with her—as angry as she had been with Him once upon a time. This was one the few times as an adult that she had felt like she really needed Him, and in her mind she thought He might feel used. She certainly would.

  “God, if you’re listening, I want you to know that I need you. I know that I haven’t talked to you in a while, but I need you. I need you to make this stop. Please, please. Make it stop. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”