Nothing like a little heavy-handed subconscious symbolism, eh?

Recently I dreamed I was walking down a street in my hometown. On this particular (real-life) street, there is a corner where most of the churches sit. Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran and Catholic--I dunno if they all built there so's they could throw rocks at each other on Sunday mornings, or what, but that's how they built.

It's cold in the dream. Winter. And as I walk down the sidewalk, I see a little girl playing on the edge of the street opposite me. She's wearing one of those fuzzy, hooded, little-girl coats that you never really see any more, but I think most women over thirty probably had one. The little girl is maybe four or five years old.

A big, black four-by-four pickup truck comes sliding around the corner spewing a dirty rooster-tail of sand, gravel and snow. The pick-up hits the little girl and goes roaring off down the street. I run across the street to the kid, and go down on my knees in the snow. I'm afraid to touch her. She has that horrible, gangly, loose wrong look shared only among small living things hit by automobiles.

Her eyes are open, but she isn't focused on anything, and I don't think she even sees me. I tell her to "hang-on"--or words to that effect, and go running to the nearest church--which is empty and locked. I find something and smash a stained-glass window to get inside and look for a phone--which I find. Strangely enough, it's a heavy old-fashioned rotary-style desk phone.

So I start calling for help. The police department tells me it isn't in their jurisdiction, I should try the hospital. The hospital tells me I have to make an appointment for an ambulance--two weeks out. The fire department phone just rings and rings and no one answers.

So I go back outside (let myself out through the heavy double doors which lock with a dead-bolt from the inside) and go back over to the kid. She looks really bad. Really bad. Her teeth are chattering, and she's as white as the snow she's laying on, and there's blood coming out of her ears. The fuzzy coat adds to the impression that she is some small wild thing that ventured onto a highway at the wrong time.

So I find a big rock (I know it doesn't make any sense, but it was a dream. There just happened to be a big rock not very far away.) And I'm going to kill her, like I would a rabbit I found hit by a car on the side of the road.

And I woke up.