I was in the kitchen in our new house in Pittsburgh. I was three. My father returned home from work, coming in the back door off the kitchen. I rushed to him and hugged his legs. My mother was there in the kitchen with us, preparing dinner. All seemed unusually normal and happy for a moment.
I went out through the back door to play in the backyard. I climbed onto the metal tubular jungle gym and swing set. We had this jungle gym when we lived in Phoenix. In the waking world, it was still in Phoenix, at the old house. In my dream, I relocated the jungle gym to our new house in Pittsburgh, to make up for something I missed. To substitute for the things that I may have sensed were slipping away. Things like my parents’ marriage.
I got to the top and surveyed the landscape. I realized with surprise that our house on a hill was actually the only house on a very narrow hill that rose enormously high into the atmosphere. Vertigo washed over my small body, perched on top of these metal spindly legs that suddenly seemed not so grounded anymore. Lush, green grass covered our hill, but all around us, far below, the air was orange and red and thick with fumes. With horror I saw that as far as the eye could see, the land was covered with volcanoes. Thin red clouds on the horizon glowered menacingly. The sun, low in the sky, was partly obscured and the refracted light was heat and fire all around me. The perfect grass had been cool to the touch on bare feet, and the metal jungle gym was ice cold steel in my frightened fingers, but here I had stepped into the mouth of hell.
The volcanoes fumed and sputtered. They littered the landscape like a disease, crowded on top of one another, some large and grotesque, and others huddling around like parasites to suck life out of the big ones. Black smoke rose from a few. There was a stillness and quiet that froze me in fear and awe. Something was about to happen. I was at the very cusp of peace and terror on my little green hill. It was the last refuge in a world doomed to destruction. I was only a small form, with no experience, but all the hairs on my body were standing on end, alert and ready for whatever was to come, but unable to stop it.
As though they were one creature, the volcanoes all began to emit far-away echoes of rumbling sounds. The earth seemed to lurch nauseously, like a drunken man about to vomit. Peering into the distance, I could see movement: bright, glowing orange liquid was issuing out of the volcanoes, in a wave of small spewages from every volcano around me. I sat dumbfounded. I gripped tightly and watched in silence. Lava flowed into crevices and valleys too deep and too far to see. The land was an enormous bathtub filling with vicious, searing light. The bathtub was deep, and it filled slowly. I had a long time to consider this. For several drawn-out moments, I tried to reassure myself that a flood like this—one made of fire —would not affect our house. We were high on a hill, and we were safe. My mother had told me so.
The lava kept spilling out of the volcanoes, an endless torrent of molten rock. The bathtub was filling. My hill was becoming an island in the fire flood. Glowing orange met green grass. Lava was about to reach the brim. In an instant I saw that we were not safe. I jumped down from the jungle gym in a panic, wondering where we could go, what safety could there be in a landscape full of volcanoes? Why had we chosen this as our home, when we could not go anywhere in case of danger?
I ran back into the kitchen. My mother and father were there talking. They had no idea about the danger. They had no clue that we were living so recklessly, that we were so vulnerable. I was frantic, yelling. “The volcanoes are erupting! The volcanoes are erupting!” They regarded me with indifference. They said there was nothing to worry about. The volcanoes could not be erupting. It was impossible, they said. I should go on and play, and leave them to their conversation.