The railway clacks and dark water is speeding past me below. I am looking out the window of a train as it crosses over the ocean just off the coast of the Florida Keys. The sky is angry and dark overhead, with stars above in the setting twilight.
Across from me is a beautiful girl with a warm smile. She is in a white sundress and it dawns on me that we were just having a conversation about where we were heading, but like most dreams there are certain parts you can never seem to remember upon waking. I would really like to recall what we were talking about, but I can’t.
A flash of lightning outside grabs my attention away from her face and I look out at the churning clouds rushing by overhead. Lightning flashes, but only on the horizon where the train is heading. I point it out to the girl and she smiles. We both love watching thunderstorms, possibly something I remember from our conversation.
As the train gets closer the storm intensifies. It is beautiful and exceptional, more of a fireworks display then a storm. Lightning arcs of every color illuminate the clouds above and paint the sky in magnificent colors against the fading sunlight. Darkness settled in and we continued to watch the tempest change. The lightning began staying longer and longer in sight until it finally just moved from cloud to cloud in energetic zigzags and curls. Endless and brilliant. Lightning in waking life is fleeting, so at that moment I was aware I was in a different place then reality, but didn’t fully recognize that I was in a dream. She looked at me and said it was beautiful too.
The train rolled on across miles and miles of black ocean and we were right alongside the storm. By the time a small island had crept into view the lightning began arching into three dimensional geometric angles and shapes. It resembled a complex web of ever-changing computer circuits across the sky, still brightly colored and fascinating. For some reason I associated this phase of our train journey with the future. I just remember vividly looking up into the twisted clouds laced with electrical code and thinking of it as a doorway into the future. Even though I was witnessing lightning and clouds, I had a strong feeling that it was things yet to come. It is difficult to describe exactly.
Our train pulled into the island station and we disembarked, but I didn’t remember if me and the girl talked or got our luggage. I only remember walking in the terminal and she dropped a piece of paper she was holding, and I watched it curl away in the wind. I stooped down and picked it up, and when I turned around,..
..she was gone!