I've just woken up in a cold sweat from a war dream, the type of which I've been afflicted by since the September 11th attack. In this one I was a spy who had somehow infiltrated the Al Qaeda organization and had befriended Osama bin Laden and gained his confidence to garner intelligence for the U.S. and the Allies.
In the dream I was hunkered down with his personal guard somewhere in the Afghanistan mountains and was desperate to get the hell out of that terrorist camp to report back his location to my superiors in time for the war effort. I was also living in fear that I would be discovered and brutally killed, as I had observed the Al Qaeda and Taliban murder so many Afghanistan youth who had refused to join their militia since I had infiltrated the army. At one point there was a fire fight, like I had seen video of during the Iraq war. It was pitch dark, but ordinance lit up the black of night. I took that opportunity to beat a hasty retreat on horseback in the confusion. At that point in the dream, as I was riding like the wind, all I could hear was the heavy, rhythmic breathing of my trusty steed and the clop, clop of his hooves against hard ground as he ran in full gallop for my dear life. That and my own pounding heartbeat. I turned around to look, and sure enough, the Al Qaeda was hot on my trail with Soviet made AK-47 rifles poised to fire. I could see the breath of their horses in the evening chill and could hear the angry Arabic shouts of "Get the infidel! Get him! Kill him!" Good thing it was dream, 'cause just as they were closing in on me the horse took flight like Pegasus...like it was a Steven Spielberg movie or something. But I wasn't out of the woods yet...the Taliban soldiers chasing me had some damn "stinger" missiles that the U.S. had supplied them with years ago to fight the Soviet invasion. I looked back in flight and could see the tracers of one headed right for us. Horse and I dodged for all we were worth, but it was a heat-seeker and we were hit hard. We dropped out of the sky like a rock, like you fall in dreams when you realize "hey, I'm flying." We fell to Earth somewhere in a thicket, but not far from the pursuing mob. I looked down and my left leg had been blown off, leaving a bloody stump. The horse was near death, bleeding from the neck. I just hugged him, thanking him when he looked at me with a rolled back eye and drew his last breath, exhaling visibly. I thought I was done for, but just then a woman gallops up on horseback, her dark tresses flying in the wild wind. There was a tattered American flag draped over the hind quarters of her horse. She reached down and with one hand pulls me onto her horse, saying "Quit your crying! This mission isn't over yet!." Her horse reared back on it's hind quarters and whinnied loudly as the rider whispered something in her ear and we took off in a dusty haze, riding fast, like we were on the horse in the Frances ford Coppola movie "Black Stallion." I held on tight around her waist lest I fall off. I was biting my lip hard trying to fight back the worsening pain of my leg wound. That's when I woke up. I'm still shaking. I guess that's what I get for falling asleep with CNN on the telly. -Julius
