Suffer the Children

Dream: January 9, 2023

    I was walking with a group of children from classroom to classroom, not sure if I was one of the children, or the teacher leading them to another class. (This theme of being the teacher resurfaces on Jan 26 - yesterday) The school reminded me of the dark hallways of my old Catholic school in the Bronx. My presence felt feminine in the dream; characters have often come in with the physical and cultural aspects needed to tell the story that I have tapped into. My "Self" in the dream was an African American woman, maybe the same that had the two children in the 60's from a previous dream - very poised, intelligent.

   We were calmly moving away from some unseen danger - as it often happens in these memorable nightmares the children are calm, very practiced for times of emergency. The feeling of a dark attitude was behind us, angry and seeking some sort of vengeance - a person who was pushed past the point of suffering the stark injustices for that time-period. I'm fully involved with this dream. Officer "John" appears from the far classroom we were trying to reach - there was a door to the street in the back corner that was rarely used as egress, but he knew the way in for any emergency. John resembled the actor John Amos - someone I had seen in another dream as my coworker. He flashed me an unspoken look that translated to "Get the children out the door - HURRY!" I nervously nodded to my friend as we passed each other. Drawing his revolver from the side holster he was wearing the leather jacket appropriate for the cool winter months, and disappeared around the corner.

We only hear a few quickened footsteps; three shots rang out in succession, the children were close enough to the exit and began running out the door that officer John had left ajar for them. Concerned I turned back to offer my self as a final shield to the children in my charge - I hear the angry words ring out as I look down and see John laid out on the ground, mortally wounded. Loosing my fear I try to stop the man, admonishing him for shooting inside a school - in front of children. This is an all-black school, the man who is also African American is ranting about the plight of our kind, blaming the Whites and that the officer was working for them, that is why he shot him. I turn to see that several of the children had forgotten their training, rather they were huddled in the corner protecting one of their classmates who had panicked - an Albino child. The child knew that he was considered "White", an aberration and felt responsible for the man's anger. I pleaded with the man to leave so that I could get help for John who was already passed out from loss of blood. The man was too far gone, waving his pistol around and wild-eyed... he had lost touch... I didn't blame him at all. 

    Waking up I could only think about the scared child in the corner... was this the entity I named Tricky? Seeing the familiar ghostly form that I have grown accustomed to, was the cue that released me from the grip of this nightmare.