summer camp

omg.
what an absolutely disturbing dream...

admits the serenity and lush greenery of the country side, a property over looking a pristine lake was a prison. A mental spiritual prison that had my mother and I locked into a lost without a key.


From what I can remember (the feeling of dread, anguish, fear are still with me), mom and I were on this retreat. Oh the summer smell of dewy grass and high noon light filtering gracefully through the high branches and leaves, bathing everything in a subdued green haze.

It looked like a company pic nic - people walking around in groups, talking, laughing, wandering the grounds. I wanted to swim, so desperately. The water was calling me. Clear, calm - serenity personified. But I was locked into doing something else. And besides, nobody was swimming and I didn't want to stick out. The new guest who has absolute disregard for new guest etiquette.

I was to meet mom in a cabin - mess hall. Built entirely of stripped wood logs, the pine smell filled the whole room. Moist and almost sweet, i felt as if i had walked into the womb of spring. People sat around in chairs. A semi circle, 15 at most.

Three officiators were at the front of the room, with microphones, nonchalantly scanning their group. I found a chair in the back of the room and tried to blend into the walls.

"miss, over there in the back, please come up here..."

ouf

slowly and deliberately i moved, looking down at my feet, counting the steps. At the end of a row filled with faces frozen with overly zealous smiles, and glazed eyes,  i took my place.

There was some kind of ceremony. The only thing I could equate it to was a cross between a town hall meeting and a quaker ceremony. At one point, i was called up to the front of the room and asked to stand next to a young woman in a long petticoat. Hair pulled back tightly in a bun, the tips of her scuffed brown shoes peeping out from underneath the soiled hem of her dress, she was silent and sweaty. I could feel her perspiring thin forearm against mine.

the undead, clammy and cold in the country on a sunny summer day
what fun...

Something happened and she began to wilt. The officiant began to ramble on - a deflated rap parable of Jesus and life everlasting. Her shoulders twitched, her head slumped forward. A life sized raggedy ann doll entering into a seizure next to me. What the fuck was that all about?!

She leaned on my shoulder hard. More moist grossness on my shoulder now. The person with the microphone shouted: "Hold her up! Put your arm around her!"
And so i did, hesitating. She also smelled of cold urine and salt. I turned my head into the other direction to take in the pine aroma around me.

She collapsed into a crumpled cotton heap at my feet. I leaned down next to her, cradled her head. It seemed as if she was having a seizure.
"Yes! Yes! That is what you do - hold her head!"

people in the audience began to stir, mumble, chant.

After a few seconds, everything went quiet.
The young woman woke up, and allowed me to pull her up to her feet. She smiled and hobbled back to her chair. Without hesitation, i turned to walk to mine.

At some point, i was looking for mom. We had kept on crossing paths, motioning to each other in the distance, over the heads of men and woman too pleased to be there. Signaling in a language only a mother and daughter understand.


Dusk came. It was time for dinner.

My feeling of dread and apprehension grew exponentially. What was this place?
I could not help but think back to the Jonestown massacre. I was young enough to understand what it was about. Young enough to understand what those piles of corpses in the jungle meant and why it happened. Trade a jungle for the green mountains and there we were. Fear turned into near paralysis, but I knew I had to find mom and get out.

Dinner looked eerily similar to the quaker meeting, except everybody sat at round tables. Looked like a wedding of sorts. A banquet.


The last supper...

In the food line, silver trays steamed with fresh vegetables and bernaise covered salmon and meaty lasagna. I skipped the main course and went for the carrots and beans. Mom managed to cut into the line behind me.

"we have to get out of here. it's a cult. Look over there. The big punch bowl",
and there it was. Purple cool aid. But everybody looked so peaceful, plates filled with food. Would they off themselves just before a good meal?

That would just be too sad...


"they won't do it now, there are too many new people here. They have to hook us in first, then they do it..."

Dinner dissolved into nightfall. It would be a difficult task, to pack all our bags and nonchalantly walk down to the car. But we had help. Others who could not, for whatever reason, leave. Somebody had sedated the cats. Someone else had packed food for us. All of it, waiting in the big black mercedes. (a really nice car i may add - light blue interior. A/C, GPS.) As we scouted the land, heard some people's voices over the bend, we slipped into the vehicle, slipped it into neutral and was pushed off by two men all dressed in black. Coasting past the gates, I could not help but think of what a waste that lake front property was and how I could have really enjoyed the time away.

Through the mountains - 4am. the sky began to change from indigo to a deep water blue. We would have to hit the border before sunrise. Less people, more chances of crossing over unnoticed.

I worried that the cats would become dehydrated after such a long trip. They slept, or were semi conscious. My heart ached for their plight. Dragged along with no say of their own into another place, world that was unfamiliar to them. But soon they would be home. We would all be....


at the border crossing, a single window in what looked like a small gaz station.
5am. The blue was changing again. Would not be long before we would be bathed in sunlight. Even in a black car, we could easily be identified.

Mom rolled down the window. The border window lifted up.
"Mary sent us."
pause
"thank you, go ahead, and welcome home."
The uniformed woman looked tired but releived, as if she had been saved from something. Perhaps she was releived because she had saved us from something...

I woke up, distraught and in a panic. My muscles began to betray me. The ache was brutal. Perhaps this was translated into my dream as helplessness. Inability to move away from danger. But we did.

I still have this uneasy feeling, as if something is wrong. Some ticking time bomb is about to detonate. The other shoe is about to drop. Kool-aid about to be stirred.

Perhaps it's just this shit medication fucking with my neurons. If it can paralyze my body, God knows what it's doing to my mind...