Snow

By Joe Cunningham

I had a strange dream the night before last.


For some time now, I’ve been only having two recurring “nightmares,” one might say. A psychologist would tell me I have post-traumatic stress. I would not disagree.


The first dream consists of being trapped in the seminary I was in for seven years. Again. It’s a mental prison. The doors are always open. One can, very easily walk off the lawn to the world outside.


But you can’t. I cannot explain this to someone who has not experienced it. There are no invisible electric fences involved. It is a prison of the mind. One feels so compelled to stay there, one would, actually, murder his own son, if he had one; or in effect, murder the possibility of one, just to stay.


When I have this dream, I forget I have a son, in the real world. I am afraid of nothing, except losing my son. I can tell you this is the most terrifying nightmare I can ever have. When I wake up, every time, I am shaking.

The second dream is like it, but in a different sphere. The form of it changes, but the essence always remains the same. I am usually somewhere familiar. Somewhere that means a great deal to me. Usually in present times. And then she is there: maybe in passing or as confrontational as we will ever get. She is sad. She feels, it is so strong I can feel it too. She knows I love her and she, though cares about me deeply, does not love me too, not like I do.

There are never any words; just this, telepathic understanding.

And even though I understand this dream more than I have ever understood any, it never gets any easier. I think this dream is only slightly less painful than the first dream; but I would not classify it as a nightmare. It is something beautiful. But it’s an ending I keep living over and over and over.


I have these dreams every night that I can remember. Sometimes both in the same night. Sometimes they alternate. Sometimes they mesh together.


Two nights ago I did not.


I was standing in a snow covered field. It was dusk or dawn, I do not know. I suppose it matters.

Lawrence was there. Lawrence Gabriel, the Native American boxer who I contacted to write a book about after he got shot saving the patrons of a bar on the West Side of this city I live in. She is Native American.


Note that.


I couldn’t see him. But I was trying to get into someplace in front of me, when I was stopped by the natives there. Like it was a place only they could be, not white men.


After meeting Lawrence for coffee that fateful day, I began my research on him, his culture, his life, his sport, his everything. It became my life and it became overwhelming for me. Like a chore at times. I paused the project, the way one wishes you can do to a giant of a term paper in college.


But I had already gone so far, our lives had intertwined so much, I ended up having a significant role in the book I was going to write.

We see each other rarely now, because of me. I changed the book to be about me with the subplot to be about him, as a contrast of our lives, one symbolizing the other, and so forth. Typical writer shit. Earlier in my life, in the seminary I was trained to renounce all things: to be detached from all things.


I have been unable to hold onto any friend or family member or significant other since. Except my son.


Recently Lawrence and I reconnected, even if it was only for a moment, even if it was on Facebook Messenger and then after, without talking about the heavy stuff, for a second in real life. In passing.


In the dream, it was only a moment, but the natives changed their mind and I passed through the blockade into native land, where I felt white men had never been. There was Lawrence sitting in the snow, the sky purple and orange, saying to them, as if I had passed some great test, and as if the words had been stuck in time, he said-


“He can come in.”