Melinda

- - SCARY WALL OF TEXT AHEAD! - -

Had another weird dream wednesday-night, last week. Got up at 5am to write it down. Somehow writing them down automatically makes me remember them better. I pretty much remember the last post I did (I Had A Dream) as well. The mind is a peculiar memory-storer. This post is titled after the name of the girl I save in the dream. The below is as I wrote it down (yes, in English).
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It started vaguely at the Northern Whitsun Camp of scouting. I remember being in traffic, seeing the scouting tractors (our own) and there was some interaction with the drivers. What I clearly remember is walking among tents, where I apparently was with my SIGMA team (the medical technicians team of the Netherlands Red Cross), but we, or at least me and two others, were in white naval like uniforms. [This seems to have nothing to do with scouting or the Whitsun Camp, but I did dream it up...] We were providing first aid I think, or just there for no apparent reason. We were overlooking a large colonne of military personnel passing by, from a hill where we had the tents set up. There was a fence we were leaning against. As we were looking down, we heard shouting. They were three marines in light-brown uniforms with dark hair. I apparently thought they were making gay remarks about the position I had, so I flipped them the finger and made confirming remarks back while sluttishly pointing at my ass. Eventually they came up, but nothing happened. Then there were two victims with minor injuries (one had a jab on the nose and another had a pretty nice cut in the face as well), which were easy to handle as I was preparing to do so; but they were snatched away by some woman in regular clothes. I hate it when bystanders rob me of work... Then we were (suddenly) in a tour through the tents, lead by an army-fireman. He explained how they usually use the tents, showed why they rolled up the sides of the tents and as we walked on I commented on a stack of fuel supplies with a tarpaulin over them which was rolled aside half of the yellow flame mark on the tarp, indicating the nature of what it was covering. Next thing I know I'm back at the Whitsun Camp walking along the tents, checking them out (as I usually do) and on my way noticing a strange construction of stacked logs with ropes attached, holding up a large tarpaulin, forming a tent. After wondering how they got all those logs here and marvelling at how labour-intensive it must be, I went to take a look inside. There was an elevation, made with oddly placed poles, in a shallow V-shape, to form a floor. I heard children in the tent, obviously preparing their beds.

I walked out of the tent on another side where this hot, shirtless blond leader was sitting. He was talking about how the Freylema group (old rival) still had their old tents; but I couldn't but stare at his amazing body. He went like "gross, dude" to which I replied something along the lines of "come on, handsome", trying to get him to be less defensive. We talked for a bit about tents and stuff and the leadership training I remembered I had done with him. More people joined us as we were apparently sitting on a garden-table-set-thing (you know, with two benches on either side of a table, in one piece). I knew the scouting group from other activities but couldn't (and can't) remember the name. This dark haired guy also came along and started flirting, but my interest was with the blond leader I had known before. "Because of the heat" I took off my t-shirt [the navy uniform was gone], shortly after which I left. Of course I forgot to take the shirt with me... I felt happy about my naked upper body. I went back to the blond who was already asking whose t-shirts these were (they were multiple), out of which I just grabbed mine. It was a DelfSail shirt, where I was with the Red Cross and Scouting, which he (the blond shirtless leader) immediately recognized and said "Oh, Of course you were there too!". I continued on my way walking bare-chested in the sun towards the beach. Where we normally have the Whitsun Camp there is no beach, only pine forests and large open areas of dry grass on sandy grounds, but no matter. I walked to beyond the line of tents and saw the masses of people on the dirt road crossing through the tents and headed for the beach as well. There was a small dyke when I arrived and I leaned against it watching crowd. Suddenly people were scared and I looked behind me.

A strange black thundercloud, stretched in a thick line across the coast for as far as we could see and hanging low, had appeared. It rolled right over the small dyke we were holding on to. We watched it as it suddenly came down and not 10 metres away from us, right on top of the people walking on the concrete path in the dunes. They were consumed for a moment, then the lightning started. The cloud became less dense and we could see people get hit by the strikes. Robert, a guy I knew well who is an ex-colleague leader, was hit by it, the electricity passed through his body and he grabbed for his head but kept running (they weren't running at first). A kid also got hit which apparently immobilized his knee and he went through it. More regular (grey, not the strange shape) clouds were coming in which started pouring rain. We told kids to to cover: make themselves as small as possible sitting with only their feet touching the ground. The kids all complied beautifully as I looked around me. I and the other leaders addressed the kids who were lying flat and kept kept pointing at the sky with their fingers (for some reason). I also asked the boy which got hit how he was feeling.

Then all of a sudden water was flowing over the dyke, I figured it was the heavy rains at first, but the salt and brown colour quickly made me realize it was seawater. It went right over us. I tried to hold on to the wooden railing which ran across the dyke's length, but the water quickly rose as to submerge the young boy I was protecting. He went under and lost my grip of the railing. I want along with the flow and saw many in despair around me, but hardly any of the children there were at first. As I got to some kind of wooden elevated walkway about ten metres away from where the sea caught me. I shouted to the boy who was still with me, whose head was now above the sandy water, to vomit (to get out the water somehow), which he immediately did. I went back for the dyke for some reason, I guess safety, and in the process lost the boys head under water again. I again told him to vomit as we arrived at the wooden railing of the dyke, and this time he barfed up some red vomit with chunks in it. For some reason I looked around me again, and there it was; about a hundred kids floating around, drowning. One leader was already resuscitating a child on the wooden walkway, and I immediately went towards the other victims. The horizontal beam of the railing was in the way so we had to go under it, I guess because the sandy dyke was washed away by the flood, which would submerge us (the boy and me) again. I held my hand across his mouth as we went under for a short period of time. I dropped him off at the slope of the wooden walkway on top of which some leaders were saving lives while in a crowd of children.

I looked around me and to find the nearest victim for me to help. Now many children were still in the water, but swimming in terror. One girl floated lazily in the brown mass of seawater. As a kid crashed in her swimming, she didn't respond. So I went for her, one young girl was swimming behind her from my point of view and sort of gave her to me. She said "Yes, yes, Melissa!". I dragged her the white-faced girl to the boardwalk and a girl, about 16 years old, helped me drag her on top of it. It crossed my mind to explain to her why I am qualified to help this child, but quickly established that she was too young to be better trained than me and would, under these circumstances, not doubt my action. I asked her to stay with me in case I'd need help and started the resuscitation procedure. I accurately followed child- and drown victim resuscitation protocols, first giving mouth-to-mouth ten times, then fifteen chest compressions followed by two respirations and repeating the last two steps continuously. People around me were doing chest compressions mostly, at least that is all I saw, but it didn't occur to me to offer some feedback in the heat of the battle.

While considering the possibly many more children floating around waiting for help, I woke up.