FAST Fiction: Fall Classic Dream State #11

“I still have a dream … I have a dream today.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

Here in my heart there’s a dream that’s unbroken
And it gets in my way, but it won’t be denied.
Oh, here in my heart, the door is still open
Waiting for you to walk into my life.
— Chicago • American rock band

Fall Classic Dream State:  Part 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10

Once upon a couch, I was home watching the pregame show before the decisive game of the 2000 World Series — the Mets-Yankees Subway Series — but I fell asleep just before the first pitch, and soon I began to dream…

This dream started as a wild, death-defying roller-coaster ride — a metaphorical coaster, but literally death-defying because I somehow survived a nosedive from the top of the Empire State Building by landing, dream-like, on a pole vaulter’s cushion. I wound up in New York City’s Canyon of Heroes, along Broadway, where NYC parades have honored champions and lionhearts from Amelia Earhart to Jesse Owens (in the 1930s) to French president Charles de Gaulle and the Apollo 11 astronauts (in the 1960s) to Nelson Mandela and the Yankees (in the 1990s) — three times for the Yanks that decade.

Wait … the Yankees get three parades, while Mandela gets one? Yes, this mystifies me — does it seem incongruous to you too? What he’s accomplished in overcoming apartheid warrants 30-plus parades compared to winning three World Series.

You might also be mystified by something else — I’m referring to “this dream” … but how can I speak about dreaming as if I know I’m dreaming, and still be dreaming?

Good question.

The answer is easily found — the same way answers to every possible question ever posed by humankind are found here in the new millennium: Google Search, of course. (Do you detect naiveté, irony or sarcasm in the preceding sentence? For now, you’re on your own — no spoilers at this juncture!)

The answer that I’ve found easily on the internet is this: I’m apparently experiencing what sleep specialists call a lucid dream — “defined as a dream during which dreamers, while dreaming, are aware they are dreaming … it is unclear how many people actually experience lucid dreaming … it seems that this phenomenon may be quite common” (according to the Medical News Today website).

Yes, I’m able to access Google via the World Wide Web on my iMac — while I’m dreaming. Amazing, or perhaps bizarre … but I digress.

Since enduring that near-fatal fall from the landmark Empire State skyscraper in Manhattan — while Game 5 of the World Series is transpiring at Shea Stadium in Queens — I’ve been watching a strange parade. The first parade float carried a simple light-colored placard with what appeared to be six headlines. In dark block lettering, these headlines appear to forecast events after the current year 2000.

The first headline — 2001: Terrorist attack rocks NYC, reduces Twin Towers to rubble

In a stunning moment, after witnessing the inconceivable occur — the haunting collapse of the iconic Towers, followed by the harrowing crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania — I’ve somehow been transported back to New York’s Canyon of Heroes along Broadway … and I can see the second parade float, despite the soot-dark setting of this peculiar nighttime spectacle.

The headline of this second float reads — 2004: Red Sox rout Yankees in Game 7, finish historic comeback

Suddenly, I hear the faint strains of a song wafting in the night … it sounds familiar but I can’t quite make it out … yet now the organ accompaniment is unmistakable … wait, of course: Take Me Out To The Ballgame.

After starting this dream at Shea Stadium during the 2000 World Series, it looks like I’m going back to the baseball diamond — but this time either at Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park in 2004.

To be continued

© Bruce William Deckert 2020

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FAST Fiction: Fall Classic Dream State #1

“I still have a dream … I have a dream today.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

“I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”
— Joel — the Old Testament prophet

Here in my heart there’s a dream that’s unbroken
And it gets in my way, but it won’t be denied.
Oh, here in my heart, the door is still open
Waiting for you to walk into my life.
— Chicago — the band

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OCTOBER IS MAKING ITS WAY toward the exit.

The woods of Connecticut have already witnessed (and experienced) the force of autumn’s fiery splendor. Flickers and embers remain but will soon be replaced by ashen barrenness.

And on this evening — Thursday, October 26, 2000 — Game 5 of the World Series is about to begin.

The New York Yankees hold a three-games-to-one lead over the crosstown Mets. These clubs are meeting in a Subway Series for the first time — and it’s been 44 years since the last Subway Series. The Yankees are aiming to win three straight Fall Classics (the last franchise to do so: the 1972-74 Oakland A’s).

I lean back on the couch in the mostly finished rec-room basement, watching the Sharp TV that’s contained in the oak entertainment center my wife and I paid a carpenter friend to build with some of my Dad’s life-insurance money. Glancing at the top of the entertainment center, I notice a photo album my Mom gave us from the family reunion on the Cape in July. Somehow I’d forgotten it was there.

Heading into Game 5, I’m prepared for the worst … and the best … or both at the same time. My baseball emotions are as conflicted as a thunderstorm on a steamy summer day. If the Yankees win tonight, they will claim their 26th World Series championship. But, if I’m calculating correctly, that means the Mets will have lost. Hence my conflicted-ness.

See, I grew up as a fan of both teams. I cheered for the Yankees more than the Mets, though that might be because the Yanks won more often when I was growing up. Some say you absolutely cannot root for both New York baseball teams — but, well, they aren’t me. My dual fandom had always been safe, since the Yankees and Mets were never good enough at the same time to face each other in the postseason … that is, until the 2000 World Series.

As I watch the pregame show, fatigue sneaks up and sits beside me, murmuring something I can’t quite hear. Not surprising, since I’d been up late the previous two nights watching Games 3 and 4. Meanwhile, broadcasters Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are discussing the impending game, its historical significance, yada-yada-yada.

As best I can tell, that’s when I fell asleep … yes, before the first pitch — a first for me in the dozing-off department.

And soon I started to dream …

To be continued …

• Fall Classic Dream State: Part 2

© Bruce William Deckert 2012