Dream 2

I found myself gazing into ripples of the most beautiful blues, greens and fuchsias on the edge of my vision. My body was gently rocking, and warm sunshine fell over me. And there it was, the unceasing unyielding noise, rhythmically accompanied by drumming. Still unable to place the sound -- five hundred fan belts squealing, sqeaking of bed springs coming from your parents' room -- it nevertheless rendered moot the magnificent collection of colors and warmth swirling around me.

I looked down and noticed my arms. My wrists were loosely bound to a smooth wooden pole, my hands grasped the shaft. Realization dawned that this was an oar of some sort.

I broadened my attention and found that I was sitting in the hull of a small Roman galley with a blue sail, configured with four forward facing seats on each side of the boat. I was third back on the left. Looking around I found there were seven other women positioned as I was, loosely tied to oars, hands gripping the smooth pole. I knew some of the women, others seemed vaguely familiar, and some were totally unknown to me.

Just then the incessant shrilling stopped briefly, someone attempted a riff on a primitive one note drum like a call to order, and a voice shouted "row!".

Like a thunderclap I I realized where I had heard the underlying rhythm before -- it was the sound the drum made when Ben Hur was held captive on that Roman slave ship.

The drum beater set the cadence, and the needy, wheedling jabbering began again.

We pulled in time.