Two Houses

Last night, I dreamed of two houses.

The first was tucked away in a cozy neighborhood somewhere in L.A. It stood supported by four very tall trees at each corner, three stories with the fronts all open and white gauzy curtains blowing out at the sides. It was a basket house and it got gradually larger at the top. The interior was very simple and all natural colors. I was fascinated by the idea of using trees as a support system, turning the building into a treehouse, and hidden right in the middle of a city! I saw a group of children nearby and they had supplies and tools all around them and they told me that they built the house and they showed me the piece of paper that had the directions and diagram: "How To Build A Basket House". The whole place housed a sense of peace and mystery.

*warning: stop reading if you don't want to read something bloody and awful!

The second house was a one story concrete block and the front was open but with a glass face. I went there with a woman, an acquaintance. Because the front was transparent, you could see inside and it was very dark and dirty and it was full of water. There were no windows other than the front, I could see debris and one or two indistinguishable pieces of furniture and I was mesmerised by the dark beauty of the water and the things floating in it and the colors. I wanted to take photographs of it. Another woman was walking by us and she looked like she was on her way to work. I asked if she would be a model for a moment because she was wearing red lipstick and had brown hair and I thought it would look interesting. I took a couple of pictures and then she left. But I didn't want to stop because I didn't feel like I'd gotten a good picture that really showed the beauty that i saw inside that house. So I asked my friend if she would model and she said yes but no nudes and don't use these for anything. I thought that was strange but didn't care too much I just wanted to take more photos.

I took one and I could tell I was getting closer. I took another and saw that something was floating toward the window. I took a third and the camera showed that it was a woman's body floating toward us, and it was all white, as though it had been there a long time or maybe it wasn't real, like a mannequin. And then the story of what had happened in that house flashed through my mind very quickly.

A woman had been murdered there in the most awful way, piece by piece head first with a strange log cutting contraption. There was lots of blood. And screaming. The image of this man covered in her blood and pushing her into the machine as she screamed kept going through my head for the rest of the dream, like an overture.

And then the woman I was with took the memory card out of my camera and said that she wanted to hold onto it, implying that she wanted to make sure that no one saw the pictures of her. The police came and we told them that something bad had happened there and they asked if we had proof, because the body had disappeared. And then the woman I was with began acting even more strangely saying that she had the proof but they couldn't see it. I could sense that something bad was going to happen again and then....

the phone rang. Thank GOD! Or, thank Laura for calling at that very moment.

I can't stop thinking about how strange it was to dream of two houses that were so very different, and also wondering if the dead woman and my acquaintance were one and the same...