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Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Yap: A dream
By Januar E. Yap
Meanwhile
Although there was no way of telling if it came with a furious snoring or if there was R.E.M. (rapid eye movement), which is usually associated with an action-packed dream.
The dream took me back to 1963, to a familiar scene offering a podium and a great black orator saying, “I have a dream…that my poor children will one day live in a nation where they are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character…I have a dream.” But then those words I may have reproduced only post-dream, when wakefulness transports us back to things familiar. In that dream, it may have taken place sometime 2003, in a scene offering not a great black orator, but nevertheless an icon of decency, saying, “I have a dream…that my poor children will one day vote for someone not because they’re a movie star or they’re winnable, but by the content of their character…” My subconscious has a limited bandwidth, so memory may have only retained a fuzzy signal of the words. Pardon me.
But I must have a full signal when the man said, “I declare war against the enemies of democracy.” I remember the words vividly, so vividly that I almost thought it was real. “I cry not for myself, but for the Filipino people.” That, too, I think may have gotten through the best of signals.
But the dream transported me swiftly to a voice saying something about Asian leaders. Surely strangely, some dreams seem to generate a certain method, certain intelligence. The voice recalled the way Asian leaders are created. They aren’t so much catapulted into power as self-made individuals, but they are as creatures of circumstance. They are swept to shore by historical tide. Events, said my dream, made them. At this point, the dream took me back to the decency icon speaking at the podium. “I declare war…”
Surely strangely in that dream I saw the man embodying the aspirations of a nation. In the thin sheets of clouds in that dream, I saw a fighter who does not cower under duress.
Strangely, in that dream, I think I saw the next president of the country.
(For just about anything: januariusmail@yahoo.com)
(October 29, 2003 issue)
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