Sandy Supposes....

Omen of Blood

PROMPT: Creation Saturday! Expand on or finish up a dream you've had. If you woke up before it was over, how do you think it ended? If this isn't something that has happened to you lately, come up with a sequel to a recent dream.

          I'm not much of a dreamer. Most of the time, I struggle to shut off my thoughts so I'm able to sleep. This tends to keep me awake, tossing and turning for hours. When, or if I finally succumb to slumber, I'm a restless sleeper. During my few hours of shut-eye, dreams do not dare to intrude. But, I did experience one whopper of a dream , a premonition, that morphed into reality. I suppose I remembered it's foreshadowing because it was so intense, and dreams were foreign to me.

          As I have mentioned before, my hubby is a former competitive figure skater. For years, he lived, breathed, and ate all things skating related. Everyday was a training day with cardio exercises, weight lifting, dance lessons, on-ice sessions, and more. He not only competed as a single skater, but he was a pairs' skater too, so his time was always spent moving. Competitions and extra training saw him constantly travelling, nationally and abroad. During his final year of this mayhem, we began dating. This 'regime' of a competitive athlete was new territory for me. We managed to see each other within small pockets of time, but the skating was a priority. Part of his routine was to attend a training seminar with his partner and other team mates that kept him away from home for three or four days at a time.

         The night before he was scheduled to depart, I envisioned him being struck down by a terrible accident. In my vivid dream, he was bleeding profusely, and he was unable to save himself. As I've stated, dreaming was not normal for me. This one frightened me awake, and prevented me from returning to sleep. The morning of his departure, I saw him off. He sensed something was 'off', and pressed me for details. I shrugged ,and described my dream as if it couldn't possibly be anything meaningful. I was hoping it was just misplaced fear.

          Two days later, I received a phone call that my boyfriend had been rushed via ambulance to a hospital. His father arranged to pick me up, and we drove several hours to see for ourselves. From the injured party himself and witnesses, we pieced together the story. Paul had his partner in an overhead lift, a platter lift I believe, when suddenly and inexplicably he stopped. He'd been skating forward at full speed and power, and his skates just slammed to a shuddering stop. With the momentum and the laws of physics, his partner didn't stop moving. She was sent into a downward spiral towards the ice. Paul had always been taught to guard and save his partner at all costs, and his instincts kicked in. As he was also in the process of toppling forward, he somehow managed to keep a grip on her, and he lessened the height and intensity of her fall. He twisted and set her onto her feet, but she was not prepared. It all happened too quickly. The moment her skates struck the ice, she stumbled forward onto her knees. Simultaneously, Paul fell forward onto the extremely sharp rear blade of his partner's skate. The metal forced its way into his groin.

          He recalls a skater who'd been watching from the bleachers jump over the boards and rush to his aid while the coach tended to his bruised partner. He saw the pool of blood spreading under him as his rescuer tried to staunch it with his bare hands. He worried that the first responders would not be able to load him onto the stretcher. He remembers the jolting trip in the ambulance. He had a memory of punching the examining doctor as he stuck his fingers into the wound to gauge its depth.

          Anyway, he survived a surgery with a multitude of sutures that repaired a severed artery in his groin. He later learned that he'd stopped on a dime. Only coaches wore street clothes on the ice, and one of them must have inadvertently dropped a dime, from a pocket, onto the ice. It froze just above the smooth surface of the ice, and waited for my future hubby's skate blade to hit it. Needless to say, this accident interfered with his training plans.

         This is still the one and only dream that has ever haunted me. Was it an omen? Had I seen the future? Was it just a coincidence? Did this happen because I'd raised the power of suggestion? Had I passed my fear of the possibility of an accident to Paul, and thereby messed with his skating confidence?