Kelly Olnowich
…All of a sudden I am hiking up a side of mountain on a wide-open trail, I am on a mission to reach the top. The cosmic landscape seems familiar to me, an actual place I have been to before. Sun blasted, stark grassy fields shimmer, waving in a slight breeze. It is actually a warm summer day, clouds rest low overhead, I am climbing with an unconscious intent. Two, maybe three huge elk stand a couple yards up the trail. I stop. I am quite frightened by these animals, so I begin to walk backwards, too scared to turn my back on the beasts. Just then two unfamiliar people walk down the trail with me now, they seem unaware of the elk standing behind them. I turn around and begin to run down the mountain. I make it only a couple steps before I see some more elk down the path. This time there are 20, maybe 30 of them, they are larger than in real life. I stop and walk backwards up the mountain; their presence makes me uneasy because I do not know what they are capable of doing. All of a sudden these creatures start charging at me, galloping up the steep dirt trail, directly in front of me. I am able to run up the hill, wondering where I can go to be safe from being trampled over, it is only a matter of seconds before twiggy, whimsy trees appear next to me as I try to get away. The trees resemble aspens, chalky, grayish white, with some dotted leaves. They are not normal growing tress though. They are small, weak, and the branches are as thin as lines drawn with a pencil. Slow motion, the elk are still charging straight for me. Like a monkey, I jump into one of these trees, expecting to crush such a delicate living thing. The lines for branches are strong enough to hold me; I feel I am safe from the elk charging by. There’s no way they could attack me from in a tree. Then from out of nowhere, a jaguar jumps into the exact tree I am standing in! wtf, where did a jaguar come from? Now I’m about to be attacked by a jaguar too? He climbs about the branches several feet away and doesn’t see me. He is more interested in the pack of elk. He jumps to the ground, keeping low, preparing to attack. Like something from the discovery channel, I watch the jaguar close in and jump onto several elk, attempting to rip them to shreds. Instead, the pack of elk fight back and kick the crap out of the jaguar. I still stand in the tree, watching in amazement as the elk take him down. At first I was weary of the elk, but now I was literally cheering them, for they were actually protecting me from being attacked by a jaguar. The last thing I remember is watching the jaguar, weak, lying on the ground as he was being stomped on. The attack wasn’t as violent as an actual killing, there wasn’t even any blood, and the entire duration of the dream was silent. The last scene I remember seeing was the group of elk standing in a circle as they stomped right on the jaguar’s head, which had turned into a puppet.
