Ducks and Cover: Nukes

Like usual, I’ll describe this backwards, since it’s the best way for me to remember: I’ve classified this a nightmare because afterward I couldn’t fall back asleep, though it might hve had more to do with the heartburn.

Cindy brought in with her the duck, but it had fairly tiny eggs. I saw them and realized two things: that the duck belonged outside and that the eggs, which were too small to be duck eggs, were hatching. I quickly dropped off the duck at the side of the house, noticing that there were more eggs, all hatching. The family–Cindy’s parents, Donnie, Debbie, and their son, David, all came out to take a look. I looked to the other side and it looked as if the whole town–a town a few miles away, past a fair amount of farmland– was on fire. Ashen clouds arose from a floor of gray and orange. Suddenly a very distinctive cloud grew into our vision, mushroom shaped.

I yelled to the people that hadn’t seen it, “Looks like a nuke!” and ran to the computer to see if there were any reports online. That’s when a seismic wave hit us. It wasn’t bad enough to knock down the house or even walls, but enough to be felt. The second wave came seconds after. Again, not hard enough to knock down a wall, but hard enough to send me flying to the couch. (I jumped, running to the computer and the wave caught me.)

This is when I woke up, with heartburn. I thought it would have been near 5AM. The clock reveals it’s 4hrs too early.

Before all of this I had been delivering materials across town. It was busy, probably having to do with my trip to Dunedin and my reading of that 1491 book. The roads were like canals and back streets I took by foot. They were all full of people, most dark skinned. I think I was on a bike or a golf cart most of the time, but near the end there were way too many stairs, so i was on foot. My father was there, too, and I had to wait for him because his leg still hadn’t healed. Near the end, I was going up stairs, being very kind to some lady and her daughter who said despite my reputation as a mean asshole I was actually quite nice. Then I dropped a Smoothie King stamp card to the bottom of the stairs. I went to pick it up and that’s when I was pulled by Cindy (who had been chasing me as I did some kind of deliveries or ran around the town or something, I’m not sure) back to the house, before the nuke.

Can’t remember much before that. I think the dream is mostly unloading from a few very heavy days–people coming over for business advice, my dad’s surgery, getting errands completed, the job, the duck sitting outside my door, etc–combined with my first alcoholic drink in over a year. Note to self: no booze at least 4 hours before bed, preferably more.