Cats: "Melissa"

ats - big, huge cats, and the little black cat from my previous dreams, were in my dream last night. Baby elephants made an appearance as well.

The little black cat was with me in the building at St. Clair Shores and she was pacing between me and the door in the kitchen leading out to a deck. Back and forth she paced tail held high, a little curl in it at the tip, purring quite loudly. So, I let her out onto the deck.

I froze, however, when I realized there were two tigers in two cages made of bamboo, stacked one atop the other, in a corner of the deck. I tried to maintain my presence of mind because I knew I was dreaming, but I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. All I knew was that the little black cat was but a morsel compared to those two caged tigers.

I know there were two tigers, but the one in the top cage seemed to be the alpha cat (if there is such a hierarchy) and it seemed to be very controlled, very focused. Here's the thing - and I am still stunned that I did this - I released those tigers from their cages!

I didn't feel I was being stalked or threatened. I felt there was a tremendous intelligence in that alpha tiger, an intellectual strength that at least matched if not surpassed its physical strength. I felt as if I was being noted and measured, weighed, but this did not feel unkind or menacing.

Then I asked the tigers if they were hungry, and I may have made a gesture towards the lawn because the next thing I knew I was standing on the lawn with those tigers and my cat as two very small elephants - babies? - approached, their trunks up-curled ceremoniously, bringing Hot Pockets, of all things!

Footsteps Dressed in Red: "Melissa"

y Crow visited me in my dreams again last night. This time we had music during our flight, "All Along the Watchtower." He flew me to the top of a clock tower - oh wow! Wow! Clock-tower, watchtower, clock, watch - when I heard the song in the dream I looked for a medieval sort of watchtower for knights and arrows and boiling oil and such, but it wasn't that at all. It was a tower that tells time! Cool. Interesting.

So, my Crow and I perched on a ledge just beneath the face of the clock where we could look down on the surrounding neighborhood. I saw what seemed to be footprints on the street perpendicular to the watchtower. This was strange because they looked wet and for as far as I could see they remained wet.

The Crow hopped onto my shoulder, gurgled at my ear, and combed his beak through my hair. I turned towards him, then back again and saw the petite black cat (le petit chat noir) following that trail of footsteps, staying in the shadows of the buildings. I think I said something like, 'Okay, I guess I'm following the footsteps, too,' because the next thing I knew I was on the street studying the footprints, horrified to discover they were footsteps of blood!

I followed. The sun was blazing atop one of the buildings, bleaching out the sky. I couldn't imagine how it must feel to be bleeding so and walking those streets. To my surprise - to my great surprise - the trail led to the door of the warehouse in all my other dreams! Some voice of caution whispered in my mind so I climbed up that spiral ladder covered in white roses to survey the scene inside that building.

It sounds somewhat gothic to say my heart was pounding furiously but that was definitely my response when I saw a man inside sweeping the floor even as he left more bloody footprints. He was very tall, likely over six-foot-three, lean but muscular, with hair black as my Crow's plumage. I couldn't see his face, but he seemed ... he seemed bereft. Before I could form a thought or question about the reason such a man would feel bereft as he swept the floor of a warehouse he moved around something - the blue carousel horse! - and I saw his back. I choked on a scream. His white shirt was soaked with blood!

Beyond the realization that his must have been the blood that stained his footprints I could not form a single coherent thought about this sight. Now, to look back on it, I remember feeling that the world seemed to have stopped - my heart, my breath, everything stopped. The man, however, did not stop. He swept some more then leaned the broom against the wall and raised his head.

My god - he looked straight up at those wings, the wings I'd left pinned to the wall! He stood there so long before he bent down and took a feather from the pile of sweepings. I thought for a moment he meant to write something with the feather, but he used his finger. He touched the part of a wing that had been attached to me and traced a partial heart on the wall between those two wings.

I didn't know what to do or think, so I simply sat there on the roof of the warehouse. In the end, just before I woke, my Crow flew into the warehouse and returned to me with a third playing card. This one looks like it is meant to be the King of the Faery, Oberon.

How could Oberon possibly connect to that scene in the warehouse, not to mention my Crow and a watchtower? Why am I being given these cards? It cannot be that they are simply beautiful. They are beautiful, but, well, dreams are hardly simple!

Why is this man bleeding? Has he ripped himself from some wings and left them on a wall somewhere? Who is he? Why is he sweeping - Why is he sweeping up the debris of my yesterdays? Why did he trace a heart between those abandoned wings?

And now I realize something else - this man had a key to the warehouse!