IN THE STRANGER'S DREAM

IN THE STRANGER’S DREAM

Laura was walking barefoot down a long corridor. The corridor, rather narrow, seemed even without end , that is, she was not able to see the end of the corridor. The walls were bare, yet every now and then, as Laura kept on walking, something fell off the walls, sliding to the ground. Laura could just catch a glimpse, out of  the corner of her eye, of  that something falling off the bare walls. She thought it ( the something falling to the ground) had to be plaster, since the walls were bare. But when she bent down to look at what had fallen to the floor there was nothing. Then it had to have been a shadow, she said herself. She had also touched the floor with her hands, looking for that something she had glimpsed falling on it. But there was nothing on the floor. One of  the times she had felt the floor with her hands, she had picked up a very small, indeed bit ant, which she had placed on the palm of her hand, and there, on the palm of her hand, she had held ( kept) the tiny ant, as she continued to go on in the corridor, of which Laura couldn’t still see the end.  There were not windows on the bare walls of the corridor, so that she wondered where it came from that dim, twilight light, which nevertheless allowed ( her) to see. At a certain moment Laura noticed that the corridor walls were getting closer at every step she took, so the corridor was narrowing. Then she, terrified, anguished, said herself that, on, soon, she had  to get out of the corridor as soon as possible, or she could be crushed.  Meanwhile also the ceiling was lowering. But she still couldn’t see the exit at the end of the corridor. Laura did not have time to scream in terror that in front of her, a few steps from her appeared what at first glance seemed to her an apparition, even he could have been, a ghost.

That strange being was wrapped in a red cloak, which entirely covered his body. On his face there was a black mask . “Oh, and you? Where are you from?” Laura asked, screaming, anguished, more and more anxious to get out of that corridor, whose walls kept getting closer, whose ceiling kept on lowering, tightening her in a siege, locking her up in a trap. “ Help! I ask you to help me, whoever you are! I have to get out of this damn corridor as soon as possible, or I’ll be crushed!” Laura screamed , moving towards that mysterious someone. “ Halt! Stop!” That stranger  guy, wrapped in the red cloak, intimated to her, while he removed the black mask he had on his face and, stretched  his arm towards her, as if to prevent her from advancing. His face, very pale, was that of a young man with red eyes, as if from insomnia, and with a long wound that reached from his forehead to his chin. It was really a face which could scare, but Laura was too caught up in that other fear, of being crushed in the corridor, that she hadn’t time to realize it. “ Help me! I pray you! Help me! I have to get out of here soon! Help me!” She cried, in anguish, moving towards the young man wrapped in red. “ Oh, did not you hear me? I said you you have to stop! Do not dare to take another step!” The stranger thundered, and his face, crossed by the large wound twisted, becoming very frightening. “ But why? Why do you want to prevent me from getting out of this damn corridor?” Laura cried out in anguish. The young man, with his arm outstretched , waved at her the black mask , that had covered his face, and said: “ You cannot go forward in this corridor , you cannot even stay here…..because this is my dream, not yours!”

 “ How? Ah, this then! I don’t know you! I’ve never seen you! If anything , it is you who are upsetting by dream! In fact you care to prevent me from going out of this damn corridor!” Laura cried, waving her fists at the young man with that long scar slashing his face. Now the scar that spilt his face in two seemed to light up, becoming of the same fiery red of the cloak in which he was wrapped.  “ But don’t you understand that you can’t go out of this corridor, since it is the space of my dream? Not yours!” The young man yelled,  passing a finger on his  wound.

“ Oh, but if I can’t get out I’ll be crushed by these walls, by this ceiling!” Laura cried, completely in despair. “ You can’t leave this corridor! And you should never have entered it! This is my dream! What are you doing in my dream ?” The stranger said, with a hard,  terrible expression on his face, and waving threateningly  his hands towards her.  “ I want to go out! I want to go out! Let me out, I pray you! I implore you ! “ Laura cried. “Aaah! You can’t get out of here! You can only disappear!” As the stranger screamed furiously these words to her, here that, at sudden, a long, massive, gleaming sword appeared, gripped by both of his hands, which he wielded above Laura, as if he were about  to knock it down on her head. She, Laura, woke  up a moment before the big sword wielded by the stranger fell on her head.

That unknown guy who had appeared in her dream lived hundreds  kilometers away from her, who was a perfect stranger to him too. That same night also he, whose name was Peter, had been not a little surprised to see in his dream a completely unknown girl walking barefoot in the corridor of his house. Peter had been also shocked because when that unknown girl had appeared in front of him there  in the corridor, which was also the corridor of his house, he at sudden had seen himself with a horrible scar crossing his face. As soon as he woke up, he ran in front of the mirror . Oh, what relief , to see that there was no wound, no scar on his face. Peter wondered what it meant to have dreamed of that unknown girl , and also to have seen himself, in his dream, with that horrible wound disfiguring his face.  Laura was very impressed by the wound on the face of that young man , a perfect stranger to her, who in her dream chased her from that corridor , from which she could not get out, in which she was about to be crushed.

Laura and Peter , who did not know each other, would have met a few years later. Indeed they would have collided in a car accident in which they would have lost their lives.