It is nighttime in the park, but I seem to have gained a catlike ability to see in the dark and can make out most of the details that make it so beautiful in the daylight. The night, however, brings a different context, and the same things in its ghostly light take on a foreboding and frightening expression.

I am standing between the pathless forest and the pedestal called ‘Faith’, scanning the woods with my eyes. In little time, the object of my search is revealed. Not far off, on the outskirts of the woods, I make out two vehicles resting side by side. They are cars, classic models of the early twentieth century, somewhat beaten up and looking out of place in the tall grass at the edge of the forest. One car in particular is in an absolutely pitiful, and I assume un-drivable condition. The tires are flat, the roof dented, and it doesn’t look like there ever was paint on the body.

I’ve been walking forward unconsciously to get a better look at the cars, when a sudden realization startles me and stops me in my tracks. What I suddenly notice and experience some fright at not having noticed before, are the people in the cars: a young man in one, and a young woman in the more beaten up vehicle. They are staring at each other through tightly shut windows.

I have the impression that I am witnessing in that one moment (for they are frozen in a single moment of time) an entire story: a story with all of the events taken out to leave only a collage of naked feelings, no less strong for lack of context, but if anything, stronger for lack of division in focus, of the confusion that comes from believing simultaneously in the significance of feelings and of events themselves. Longing, fear, shame, love and hatred battle in the space between their staring eyes.

Her car is un-drivable, but there are no seatbelts in his car, and his eyes are unfocused. I don’t know how he sees her or whether he plans to drive through the pathless forest at night without ever looking away from her blurry face.

Car With the Windows Up

Hey you I see you there in your car with the windows up
No wind can blow in your hair in your car with the windows up
Hey loner sitting there in a car with the windows up
Hey maybe we can share a car with the windows up

You never roll the windows down
You shut the whole world out
But we won’t be lonely with each other honey

If you want to go I’ll take you anywhere you want
And if you want to leave I’ll drive you anywhere at all
But I can’t set one foot outside the car

Hey you I see you there in your car with the windows up
No wind can blow in your hair in your car with the windows up
Hey what’s your hesitation why are you so scared of letting go?

I really don’t mind hangin’ round
Cause I know you’re worth waiting for

And if you want to go I’ll take you anywhere you want
And if you want to leave I’ll drive you anywhere at all
And we won’t be lonely when there’s two of us
Oh I really wish you would try
But you’re lonely and you’re tired
You’ve been held down your entire life
If you’d only consent to say I need you!
If you’d only consent I’d give you all you ever wanted

And if you want to go I’ll take you anywhere you want
And if you want to leave I’ll drive you anywhere at all
And if you come to me I’ll give everything I’ve got
But I can’t set one foot outside the car for you

The two remain in their moment, but I turn at some unspoken command towards the pedestal behind me.

Upon the pedestal is a statue of the innocent young me in its forgotten toy soldier stance, partially sunken in, with wide eyes focused on the sky above. Looking at the statue, an intense feeling of pressure starts in my stomach and boils into my chest, tightening my throat and finally exploding upwards, as something long sealed-up and forgotten pours out over my face and hands to rain upon the earth—concessions of one who has tried and tried at something only to fail and lose it forever.

And then I awake. I feel a strange sensation on my left side, so I roll over, freeing my left arm from under my body. It won’t move of its own accord, and my mind doesn’t immediately make the connection that the arm has ‘fallen asleep’ due to a constriction of the blood flow, so it is a shocking feeling for me when I reach over and feel the hand, and it is like a foreign object…like feeling someone else’s hand.

A thrilling sensation overcomes me as I feel the hand and consider its otherness, its respective and significant existence, THIS—this is what your hand feels like! This is it, the first time I’ve ever felt my own hand. And somehow in that moment, it is clear to me that the sensation of my own numb hand and the dream—and all of my dreams and narrations—are just the same.

And I am convinced that the next time I am able to tap into the huge reservoir of comprehension available to my subconscious mind, I will once more understand in a clear and obvious way why that is. But just as in my first dream of the park, the connection is no longer apparent.