I dreamt I was in a gathering at a banquet table in a manor house. It was night and there was a blizzard raging outside, but the manor house was warm and bright. We were seated around a table engaged in some kind of philosophical discussion. The table held platters of food for us to take from as we wished.

I left the table and went out on the porch to survey the snowy night around us. The manor sat alone on a small hill top. There was a flood light on the porch that lit the entire hill. The storm seemed to have stopped. In the sphere cast by the light I could see a lawn thickly blanketed in white sloping all the way down to where the road began, then blackness. It was perfectly still.

I thought I saw a couple poles emerging from the snow near the perimeter of the light. Somehow this seemed strange and worthy of immediate investigation. I bounded down the slope. Running through the snow in a sphere of pale light enclosed by night was exhilarating. It was easier than I expected to be able to run in snow so deep. I ran through one apparent “pole” then another, finding nothing solid at all. Perhaps they were mirages.

I ran all the way down to the edge of the light and then into the night. As soon as I stepped into the night, I was hit with a blast of blizzard. I zigzagged across the line between light and night a few more times to confirm the impression. It was indeed quiet and peaceful on one side and a fierce storm on the other, with no shades of gray between.

I ran back to the manor house and told the others. No one believed me. Then there was an article in the paper about how I had made these ridiculous claims and that I was lying to stir up trouble.

Image by millicent bystander, used courtesy of a Creative Commons License.