Dream of: 03 December 1997 "Free To Fly"
I was on a passenger bus which was going to travel from Dallas to Guatemala. I had been thinking of taking this trip for quite a while, and was happy to finally be on board. I was sitting in the front row of seats, just behind the driver, a young Hispanic fellow. Only seven or eight other passengers were on the bus, sitting clustered together in the seats behind me. One passenger in particular drew my attention — a brown-haired woman (about 30 years old) sitting right behind me; I was surprised by how attractive she was. She had a beautiful face and a fantastic body; I hoped I would become acquainted with her during the trip.
I was uncertain how long the trip would last, but I thought it would only be a few hours. But the more I thought about it, the more concerned I became that the journey would take much longer than that. I spoke to the driver, sitting right in front of me, and I asked him when we would arrive in Guatemala; but he avoided my question and gave me some vague answer. I asked him again several times, but each time he side-stepped the question. It became obvious that he simply didn't want to tell me. I could only conclude that the trip was going to last a long time, and he didn't want to admit how long. Finally I demanded to know; I asked if the trip would take more than two days. Reluctantly he blurted out, "Twenty-nine hours."
At least now I knew. Of course 29 hours was much longer than I had originally planned; maybe I should have taken a plane. If I had worked for 29 hours and only made $10 an hour, I probably would have had enough money for the plane ticket. But I didn't much regret having taken the bus instead; I would rather be riding along on a bus for 29 hours than working. This would be more of an adventure. Of course we would have to sleep one night on the bus. I turned around to look at the seats behind me again to judge whether they would be comfortable. The seats were a little strange, because there was no aisle down the middle of the bus. Six or seven seats were simply packed in next to each other in each row. It looked as if I would have to climb over the seats to move from row to row. But the good news was that each row of seats formed a nice long spot to lie down; so sleeping on the bus shouldn't be too uncomfortable. And since there were so few people, there should be room for everybody.
It would probably not take long for me to meet the other passengers; if we were going to be traveling together for so long, we would all get to know each other. Of course I was mainly only interested in meeting the woman sitting behind me; but I was unsure how to approach her. I thought perhaps she might become interested in me when she saw my pet Dalmatian Picasso sitting on my lap. Hopefully she could see by the way I was holding and petting Picasso that I loved him, and that I must have a good heart.
When I finally looked back at the driver, I realized the Hispanic fellow was no longer driving. Instead, Buckner was in the driver's seat. He looked young and healthy, probably in his twenties. I hadn't even known he was on the bus and was surprised to see him. The Hispanic driver was now sitting beside me, keeping an eye on Buckner. It looked as if the plan was to let some of the passengers drive the bus at different times. I wondered if I would be expected to drive later; I thought I could handle it, but the thought didn't particularly please me.
I suddenly realized the bus had come to a stop, and it was starting to move backwards. I saw the problem: Buckner had made a wrong turn into a black-top driveway, instead of making the correct turn on the road a little farther ahead of us. Buckner was now trying to back the unwieldy bus back out onto the road; but he miscalculated and backed the bus all the way across the road. I hollered out to him to stop, just as the bus began backing over the far edge of the road. But my scream was too late; already the bus had backed into a field, and in a matter of seconds, we were stuck.
***
I awoke, lying in a bed, with a cover pulled up to my neck. All the other passengers and the driver from the bus were also in the room. I realized we had come to the room while we were waiting for the bus to be made ready. But now I was growing impatient and was ready to move on. My clothes were lying on the floor; I reached down and picked up my jeans, intending to pull them on under the covers. The woman in whom I was interested was sitting right across from me, and I certainly didn't want to jump out of bed with no clothes on.
Once I had on my jeans, I could stand up without a shirt on; that way the woman could have a look at my body. I was glad I had lost quite a bit of weight lately. My stomach had been growing flabby, but now it was almost flat. I still needed to tone up my muscles, but basically my body was in good form. I didn't even have to suck in my stomach when I stood up; in fact, I was now so thin that if I sucked in my stomach, it would have looked as if I had a big hole there.
Once I was on my feet, I was sure the woman looked at me. I even held out my hand to her to help her stand up. It was the first time I had any contact with her, and although we didn't speak, I had the feeling we would get along. Actually I thought I would enjoy the company of all the passengers on the bus. We could form a little group and go out exploring together. Of course the first thing we needed to do was learn each other's names; I didn't even know yet who any of them were. We could even go somewhere together right now, except we weren't anywhere interesting yet; we were only a few kilometers outside of Dallas.
Our dalliance was beginning to irritate me. I walked over to the driver and began criticizing the way he was handling the trip. I asked him if he had had the transmission on the bus fixed yet. He replied that the transmission wasn't the problem, that the bus being stuck in the field was the problem, and that we were going to go work on it right now.
I finished dressing. I pulled on a black tee-shirt with some bright yellow and red cartoon pictures of either Dick Tracy or Archie on the front — I knew I had both kinds of tee-shirts. I also glanced at myself in the mirror and saw that I had a little black handkerchief and well as a longer black piece of cloth tied around my neck. I was also wearing a black hat. My jeans were black, and I was also thinking of putting on a black jean jacket. But it occurred to me that I looked a little too much like a dandy, especially with the black handkerchief and cloth around my neck — so I pulled them off.
***
All of us were standing on the road, looking down on the bus sitting in the field below us. The field was lower than the road, so the roof of the bus was on a level with the road. As the others began climbing down the bank to reach the bus, I decided I would just take a run and leap onto the roof of the bus. I took a short sprint and jumped into the air. But as I began rising, I went far higher than a normal leap, and I realized I was actually flying. After staying aloft for a short while I began descending toward the roof of the bus. But just as I was about to touch down, I changed my mind and once again swooped back high into the air. I thought about doing a somersault in mid-air; but it had been so long since I had flown, I was afraid I might loose control and crash. I decided I would be better off to simply content myself with flying for a while. And I was certainly content. I had begun to fear that I might have lost the ability to fly; but obviously I still had it. My only concern were some electric wires high over my head; I certainly didn't want to get close to those. But other than the wires I felt free to fly all around the immediate area. I wondered if the others down below could see me. They didn't seem to be paying much attention.
Copyright 2001 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
