As far back as I can remember, I’ve had a sense of dread. I dream, and when I wake, I am sure it will be the day the world ends. Rose, my therapist, tells me more of her clients have apocalyptic dreams like mine. She doesn’t know what it means.
Yesterday at the beach as I watched the beach meat in their combat ritual, I had one of my visions of annihilation. There were four of them. Their sandy bodies glistened. Muscle and sweaty flesh silhouetted in an exploding sunset ripe with blood. Their overhand smashes and digs were laced with grunts and howls and the wail of loss. I imagined them still grinding one another to dust in the chaos of extinction. The shaven-headed one, the tall, muscular and vicious one spiked a set-up and the volleyball blasted his opponent in the face and he went down—on his back, on the sand. Bleeding. The fallen enemy crawled off the pitch, his shamed partner beside him.