DREAMS

THE DREAM by Leocadia K

People say when you die in a dream, you die in real life. I can tell you for a fact that isn't true. I have always had dreams that feel like they last entire lifetimes, where I grow up and die right as I wake up. Infact I have always had the same dreams over and again.

When I was gowing up my siblings often teased me for having marks on my neck. I was born with light marks that look like fish scales all around my neck. Faint but visible with one larger and dinstinct area on my windpipe the size of a quarter.

"It's a birthmark", Mother would say. "Just put Vaseline, it will go away in time' It never did.

I absolutely hated it and I also hated anything touching my neck. Ties, scarves , turtlenecks would gag me and get me into a panic attack. I was forced to wear a bow tie once on my aunt's wedding when I was 13. The level of fear and anxiety I experienced that day cannot be put into words.

It was not until I started having the same dream time and again that

I made a connection. It felt like a memory. In the dream I had lived before and I was about 20 years old. I lived on a farm in a shacky house alone, a very lonesome woman. It was around the mid 1800s and I saw myself wearing an old green dress. I was desperately trying to clean the blood from where someone had bled profusely to death. I felt frustrated that I couldn't clean the old wooden door. Suddenly it dawned on me. I had killed someone. I watched a group of men approch the house armed with swords screaming "Witch, Witch"

The next thing I remember I had a noose tightening around my neck in front of a big crowd. I was in gut-wrenching pain. I couldn't breathe and my neck felt like it was on fire. I kept fighting, desperately trying to breath. My mouth hung open, my tongue out, my eyes wide open. Finally the light went out of me. It went out like a candle flame. When the light was gone so was I. My life had ended to soon. I died young. Then everything was white and very bright. I felt