bad dreams

Bear's house before the flood. And after, when the new neighbors moved in. Same truck.

Bear in happier days before he 't decided I was bad medicine.

I don't know who the people who now live in the trailer across the street from me may be. Some relatives of Bear's. But the one night I spent there, they set up chairs on the concrete pad that used to be Bear's house and stared cross the highway and into my place. (Note to self: shades.) Then I painted myself out the door and had to leave the door cracked open for two days and nights.
 And then I had the first bad dream. When I showed up to look at the new floor, it was covered in layers of dirt and dust. Dave was working. And then I saw that the entire side of the Goose was stove in. It looked like someone had crashed a semi into it. And I realized that the floor was the least of my problems, that the Goose was totaled. That all the work Dave and I had put into it was wasted.
  And I suspected my new neighbors, who breezed into my dazed state. "Oh, Honey, said the woman. "I'm so sorry. Come over to our trailer." I went over. The man, whose name was Douglas Walker (Walker is Bear's last name) loomed over me, and I backed out of the door as I heard him say, "city people, Yankees, homos."
   I woke up and realized that it was a dream. And then I went back to sleep, and back into a continuation of the dream.
   I was at a town meeting of Thomasville with about five people and the governor. At the end I felt I should introduce myself. "My name is Claudia, and I'm from New York City, but I grew up in the Ozarks until the age of eight." I had a plan. I was going to shore up support from townsfolk and Bear's other relatives (he is one of a family with 12 kids) to fight Douglas Walker.
   I woke up again and hauled out to Thomasville. Everything was fine. Dave was working away and the floor looked great.

But that was not the end of nightmares. The night before last, I dreamt that my mother had fallen in San Miguel and slid down a slope. I couldn't catch her, and she hurt herself. Managed to get her back to her house and tried to settle her on cold packs.
   Last night we found out she had fallen in the night while trying to let the dog out and was in the hospital with broken finger and cracked pelvis.
  I have never had predictive dreams or true ones. Before.