Run for your life...

This dream was set around the Great Depression but not during it. Probably either just before, or a little after. Anyways, there was a husband and wife, and the husband went to work and the wife was washing the dishes. But there was something wrong, she was losing it, going crazy a little at a time and this was one of those moments where she was finally truly going insane. There was a crash, had she thrown a glass at a wall or something? But all I could see was the plastic tub of water she'd had the dishes sitting in to be rinsed (it was full of clean water)... it was on the floor where she'd apparently dropped it. Nothing was broken from what I could see, but the wife didn't seem to care about what she'd done.

Here's where I come in, at least, as more than a bodiless observer. I'm the child of this couple, about eight or nine years old, a fairly good little girl. Mommy is making me porridge, but she's still working on the dishes (I think she's gotten that tub off the floor before anyone could see it) and she spills some dish soap. She gets mad at herself and cleans it up but then puts a little in the bowl she's going to serve my breakfast in. She mixes it up and gives it to me and it tastes funny and I spit it out. I say I don't want to eat it, and I have realized that she is trying to kill me but I play along like I don't know this and I beg to play outside. She's trying to get me to eat more but I go out the back door (it's a sliding glass door) and skip across the yard trying not to go too fast so she'll still think I'm oblivious to what she's doing. I'm actually quite afraid that she'll try and kill me in a more direct and physical way, a battle I will surely lose.

"I want to go swimming in the creek Mommy!" I keep saying over and over as I skip towards the water running along the back line of our property. It's just deep enough that my good swimming skills will give me the edge and let me get away from her by swimming down the creek. The current is fast, too, plus I'm hoping it dawns on her that she could say, "Oh, alright, let's go swimming," and think she can drown me or something, and then tell Daddy it was a horrible accident. As I reach the creek, this does occurr to her. But this is my moment to escape, and so off down the creek I swim, although some of it is not really deep enough to suit my needs but either way, there's no stopping now, I'm running/swimming for my life.

The creek goes by the park I play in sometimes and I get out there, tearing across the grass past the swingsets and there's a ballpark there too. I'm screaming for help, but inside I know I'm a child with a mother who's got a false reputation for being a decent person (or nobody here knows and would assume wouldn't really be trying to kill me). Who's going to believe me? I can't stop and talk to anyone really, because if I do that, Mommy will catch up and say something like, "Oh she's just throwing a fit because I wouldn't let her do something," and I'll be as good as dead. I keep running and screaming although I know if I scream too much I might run out of energy, so I time my shouts for help a few moments apart.

I've made it to the streets of town, and I'm trying to find a police man. I see one but he drives off before I can reach him. Then I'm on one of the main streets and there is a bank that was apparently just robbed, so this is where all the police are but they are busy with the crime that just happened and ignore me because I'm just some annoying brat. But then I find this guy who is a private detective and I tell him what's happening and he believes me! He helps me to run away, picking me up and running down the sidewalk away from the bank, away from Mommy. It's getting dark now and the detective has to put me down for some reason and we are both running and I look back and right behind us is a big man who looks very angry and is chasing us. And somehow I know Mommy has hired him. I get this sure feeling she's pulling out all the stops now, she just wants me dead and doesn't care how it's done.

I run out into the street, and there is a car coming up behind me. I keep running along the street right in front of the car, too scared to think properly anymore. A view inside the car: it's police men! And for a surreal moment they are just staring at my back as I run along just in front of them, unaware that the headlights behind me are anybody helpful, I think it's just a car. Then they turn the lights on, blue and strawberry red, and I remember that I have candy in my pocket. I stop in front of the police car and they stop too. I eat the red candy first because somehow it's important, and it tastes so good. Then I eat the next one under it (they're lined up kind of like Mentos or Lifesavers, but this is a gummy candy) because it's blue, but I don't eat the last one because it's not a color of the police lights. And then I faint. I know that because I fainted, the police will keep me safe because something that was physically and emotionally demanding enough on me to make me faint must surely be worth investigating.

Then I woke up.