this dream

I forgot, I really want to write this down so I don't forget. This really weird dream I had last night.

My mum was in the shed at the bottom of our garden. It was kind of like a bird-watching shed, kind of like a chapel. It had the floor bench and cushions that you kneel on to pray, except while you prayed you could stare out this slit window. Overlooking the sea. My mum was in there when I went in, looking for my friend Liz. She told me that Liz had gone and as soon as she said that I knew that she was really gone. Like, dead gone. There was this horrible sense of inevitability about it all, I knew straight away that the fact that Liz had already left meant that I wasn't going to see her again. I sort of knew that the reason we were in the hut was because we were going to die.

So, I knelt down the bench and did my praying bit, all Catholic with the rosaries and stuff (I'm Anglican by the way, so don't know where that came from), and I took a moment to look out the window.

I didn't actually see the wave coming, but I knew that it was. There was a phone in the corner and mum was calling people, finding out where everyone was. She said my dad and brother were in another hut, except she called it a shelter, but it was too late for us to go and join them. All of a sudden we only had a few seconds left so we got down on our knees and clung on to each other, knowing we were about to drown.

The wave hit and I held my breath, completely expecting not to get another one. I was getting chucked around in the water, I was still near the surface but the wave was curling over me and my mouth and nose were full of water. I started choking and blacking out, I gasped for air and waited to inhale water and choke to death. That was the scary thing, I was completely aware of what was happening and what it was going to feel like to drown in the wave.

But when I breathed in, I breathed air. My head bobbed up above the water and I realised that I'd ridden it out, I was treading water in what was now a giant lake instead of my garden. Things are always more vivid in dreams but I have never felt anything sweeter than that sense of relief. I've never actually felt so glad to be alive.

Next thing I knew I was with my family, sweeping up water and wrapping blankets round my neighbours' shoulders. Everyone had survived, the whole country had just bobbed up to the surface and breathed air instead of water.

Nice, huh?

All in all, not a bad dream, until I woke up. Normally I feel relieved when I wake up and realise that I'm safe and snug in my cabin bed, but not so with this one. This morning I woke up and realised that the whole thing was real - it did happen, just not to me. And the people it did happen to didn't breathe air.