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You know how sometimes your dreams seem to have a pretty distinctive story? Even with random bits that are inexplicable or otherwise useless once you're awake and thinking about it, you get a very noticeable narrative. I had one of those dreams last night, and it was definitely one of the more distinct narrative dreams I've had (though of course, I've lost much of it through the day). It was a sad story, too.

I remember something about a wildcat, a mountain lion I think, that somehow got translated into a middle-aged or so Native American man escaping from prison. He seems very stoic, but there's a sense of extreme danger about him, as if he were a serial killer. Led by an eagle, the man makes his way very directly for his goal. He travels on foot. When there is a river, he wades or swims across. When there are thorns and brambles, he goes through anyway. Cliffs, he jumps and climbs. He keeps his path as straight as possible. The land seems like a hybrid of locales - mostly desert-ish and rocky, but with some details of the northwest and a little of the east/midwest.

Focus cut away from him to a young man at an outdoor basketball court, practicing dribbling. I remember him getting teased about it; he okay at dribbling, but not really good at basketball. One of the guys teasing him fades from the dream, and the remaining one is talking with the original young man, they spot the escaped Native man going along his path. The teasing young man thinks it's odd, but the one who'd been dribbling recognizes him as a dangerous murderer. And, for some reason, the pair decide to follow him.

Details are particularly fuzzy along their trip. They try to follow as directly as they can, and I remember something about a bridge and something about a girl that generally all the guys want, but her grandpa or someone has to chase everyone off... Through their trip, the too young men also either become or turn out to be very close friends.

In time, the two young men (which uncertainly had company from their families or something, but their presence is dream-foggy) somehow reach what is apparently the Native man's house before he does. It's dark and abandoned, but was never really emptied out. As they look through the narrow, multi-story house (with a downright claustrophobic stairwell), the real story starts to become apparent through a mix of creepy scenes and sadness. The Native man had not been a serial killer - rather, he had been charged with the murder of his wife and young daughter.

The young men find the daughter's room first, with everything neat and tidy. On the bed is what initially seems like a freshly deceased child, but the dream accepts as actually being the girl's unusually large doll. With the discovery comes the knowledge that the man did not kill the girl - she died of an illness after a long time of her parents struggling to keep her alive.

The next door is the master bedroom, and I remember skylight windows, and it seems like they might have broken at some point. The room is ghostlike and heavy with memory. It brings the knowledge that the man did not kill his wife either, though I'm unclear about her actual cause of death. It was either suicide from the grief of losing their child, or an accident involving glass from the skylight.

Around this time, the Native man arrives. He doesn't pay any attention to anyone in his house. He simply goes to the bathroom by the two bedrooms and starts showering. While he had started out with a very menacing feel, he now just seemed very tired and a broken sort of sad, like nothing mattered anymore and he was just going through the motions of life.

And around there, I woke up.