The Nebuchadnezzar magazine

I had a dream about Denzel Washington.

Not a homo-erotic dream, but one of those weird ones that stick out to you, because of their merit. There are several kinds of dreams. Some we ascribe more sentiment to than they’re worth. Yet, others encourage us to change.

This is what happened:

I was loading trucks at UPS, and felt like a hamster on a wheel. I thought, “What is the point of all this?” Then Denzel, being Denzel, hopped out of a UPS truck trench coat and all. He looked like he’d hopped off the set of training day. He was chewing gum. He grinned and took off his sunglasses.
“How you doing?”
“Alright,” I said. I dropped the package I was carrying.
“What you doing man?” He sat on the loading dock. “Come on down here. Sit by me.”
So I did.
“What I mean is how are you really doing?” Denzel said. He put an arm around me.
“Broke, and tired,” I said. He looked at me then, and I could sense he felt my weariness.
“I should get back to work,” I said.
“Hold on now,” he said. “Just for a minute. You aren’t doin’ fine.”
He clicked his tongue. Squinting he looked away from me. He gazed at the factory: the workers straining to lift heavy cardboard boxes. He looked at the conveyor belts. Then the bell rang.
“I should really be getting to work,” I said.
“Boy, don’t worry about them. They can’t see us right now.”
I laughed. “What you mean they can’t see us?”
“Exactly that.” Denzel stretched out his hand. “Look at here.” My supervisor was walking down the sorting aisle. Denzel whistled, but he kept walking on by. Denzel stood up, and I could see he through him, as if he were a ghost.
“Look at your hand” I too was dissappearing, like watercolor on a browning canvas.
“You ever been in the rain?” Denzel said.
“Of course.”
“No not that rain, but The Rain. The Red Rain – when it pours and it pours, and all you see is blood.”
“No,” I said. “I’ve never been rain…er bled on.”
“Well it’s happening now.” He beckoned towards the loading dock where a thick, congealed mess of blood had settled into a puddle.
“That’s what your in: where you feel like you’re running and you’re running but you can’t quite get out of it, and all you’ve got is your art to keep you from drowning. That’s called the Red Rain.”

I woke up then, and haven’t forgotten that dream since then. Whenever I feel like giving up, I like to think that a part of Denzel’s consciousness tapped mine when I felt hopeless. It drives me on, because my pursuit of being an educator and a writer is what keeps me afloat.