Players only love you when they're playin'...

In the dream, it's sunny... and almost too bright a day. There is a garden party of some sort going on with live music being performed from a gazebo. Everything is set in white. The scene is reminiscent of the Catalina Wine Mixer...only there's no Will Ferrell there. Just rows and rows of heavy white folding chairs on lush grass and a sprinkling of wide round tables covered in white sheets. Odd, but in the dream I know they are sheets and not tablecloths for some reason. I take a seat near the front and watch the performance distractedly. I'm there alone although it feels like I was supposed to meet someone there. But who? Something makes me turn my head. I spot them sitting side by side at one of the tables. I turn just in time to see him deliver an affectionate peck to a bare, tanned shoulder. Her face is flawless and bears the look of someone blissfully unknowing. She looks familiar- like I've seen her before in a collection of photos. Women of every imaginable shape and hue that are supposed to be special to him in one way or another. To the untrained eye they all look friendly, but only they know for sure whether it was- or could ever be more than that. But in the dream, that quick kiss betrays all appearances. What follows is hot, unadulterated rage.

In a flash, I am on my feet and charging towards them, leaving overturned chairs tossed this way and that in my wake. They fly off my fingertips as if they shared the weight of feathers. People seated around me seem to scatter and virtually disappear. No one is left but the the three of us, it seems. They give chase. No matter how fast I run, they are just out of reach. And I am blinded by thoughts of what I will do if I get my hands on either one. Suddenly the scene switches to a casual backyard cookout. There is a woman, a different woman seated at another round table- howling in pain. I never see it happen- but a long metal stake or pole has fallen from some immeasurable height. Or perhaps just the clear blue sky. It impales her fleshy thigh through light colored jeans. Her femur is no doubt in two pieces. She needs medical attention. Fast. People surround her in panic. Someone yells to give her room. Another voice is screaming to call an ambulance. Pandemonium. All the while, I am consumed by a quavering calm that whispers fiercely into my ear, ' Who gives a fuck about her? Where did they go?'

They are gone. I never catch them. Never see them again.

***

When I research the main details, I learn that to chase something or someone in a dream highlights you drive and ambition to go after what you want. Or perhaps the dream suggests that you are falling behind and have to catch up with everyone else. Considering the distance or gap between the pursuer and the pursued indicates your closeness to the issue. To dream of impalement suggests a forceful , violent or passionate release of repressed emotions. It then says to consider which part of the body is being impaled, so I look up the thigh. To see your thigh in a dream symbolizes stamina and endurance. It refers to your ability to perform and do things. That it wasn't my thigh but some random woman's confuses me a bit. I no longer cared about a fellow human being or pain and suffering. I cared not that more pressing issues were going on around me. I was deadlocked on a target that was not within my grasp. It was time to give up and I simply wouldn't admit it to myself. My fury had to place to go. All of this absolves nothing and brings me no closer to peace.

I guess when the rain washes me clean, I'll know.