“Just call me Regan,” the woman said. “I hate Ms. Doucet, it makes me sound so,” she stopped and sized up Paige for a spell, “so old,” she finished. Regan possessed an exotic beauty, stunning with her long thick curls and dazzling green eyes, she moved and breathed confidence. Abbey fell silent, his eyes studying the floor and his discomfort obvious to Paige. A surrealist painting hung on the sidewall to the right of the loveseat. It depicted a chaotic, apocalyptic scene with hundreds of look-alike-men dressed in blue jumpsuits charging down an empty street. Abandoned cars with wide-open doors lined both sides of the street while splashes of pink, orange and red colored the sky. The working-class drones disappeared into the horizon leaving observers of the painting with one pressing question, and Paige was no different—I wonder what they’re running from.
“It was a dream he had,” Regan said, glaring at Paige. “They’re running from the truth.”
excerpt from Just Before Midnight
The interpretation:
It was around 2012 when I decided to write my first science fiction novel Just Before Midnight. It was also around that time when I dreamed a dream that, even now, is so vivid and clear to me. I never actually wrote it down like all the others, but I did work it into my novel as a dream that one of my characters had. Still, I couldn’t get it out of my head. It felt more like a night vision than a dream. It felt like it was a vision about the end of the world. Mind you, this is also about the time I began researching conspiracy stuff – the New World Order, the Illuminati, 9/11 being an inside job – I was also listening to Alex Jones every day. But still, something about this dream intrigued me. Something was there. Something besides the New World Order. Something personal.
I thought about the dream again after my grandfather died. His house was in the dream, and we were running to get to it, but he wasn’t there. It bothered me. In the dream and in reality, it bothered me that my Papa Al hadn’t been there. After his death, I thought about the dream and made the connection that, maybe, the dream was coming to fruition. After all, that part of the dream had come true, my Papa Al wasn’t at that green house anymore, but what about the rest? What did it mean, if it meant anything at all? Something is coming down the road, I thought. Is God trying to tell me that I’ll be around to witness the apocalypse? A few years later, when this fiery trial took over my life, I considered the dream again:
Gwen and I were running down the street with thousands of look-alike-men dressed in blue jumpsuits. I remember Gwen was panicked as I dragged her along behind me through the throngs of look-alike men. They were also panicked. It was a chaotic, apocalyptic scene and I remember the sky was on fire, like a sunset with vibrant splashes of pink, orange and red. For miles on end, cars lined both sides of the street with their doors wide open. Gwen and I pushed our way through the working-class drones in an attempt to make it to my Papa Al’s house. That green house on 1813 13th St in Bay City, Texas – that was our destination, that’s where we needed to be, that was home. We pushed through the panicked crowd and raced up that old wooden porch. Everything would be okay. We made it. The place looked empty and I kept wondering why Papa Al wasn’t standing on the porch waiting for us. Where else would he be? Why wasn’t he here? Panic set in again until the front door swung open and my mom appeared in the doorway. That’s how the dream ended.
In my science fiction novel, I describe the dream as a painting that one of my characters created. Through my main character Paige, I pose the question, “I wonder what they’re running from?” to which another character answers, “The truth.” Although I didn’t know it at the time, I had just interpreted the meaning behind my dream. The Truth, of course, being Jesus Christ. The look-alike men dressed in blue are the dying gods or the idols of stone, and the abandoned cars are their chariots. Here’s the translation: it is a vision about the end of the world, but it’s the end of their World.
excerpt from The Apple and the Birdcage: A Memoir
The Apple and the birdcage 