horror

I recall very little of the dream, except that I was both watching the goings on as though watching a film and, at times, in it. A grim group of men gathered in a hut in the woods, all big, powerful men, dressed in 'rural' clothing such as flannelette shirts, jeans, strong boots and thick jackets. The men had faced recent and ongoing hardship; they battled one problem after another and it was wearing thin. Their group had dwindled, a man killed, another maimed, another suicided, and they were buckling under the relentless pressure. Finally, the horrors of the last few days or weeks seemed to be over and they were, though now few, poised to leave the hut and go about their lives. I both watched them and was one of them: a man called Todd of great stature, with fair hair and enormous shoulders. The group of remaining men were standing around an old wooden table in the one-roomed hut, and I watched myself as Todd lift my bright blue flannelette shirt over my head, preparing to leave. At that moment, another man, who was chairing the meeting, interrupted the flow of his speech and asked, 'Where's Todd?' I had left my vantage from inside Todd's body and was now only watching the events unfold. Todd, who was still standing on the far side of the table, sighed and pulled his shirt back on, dreading yet another disaster. The sound of chopping wood was heard and the men opened the door and went outside to see what was going on. The view shifted to the source of the chopping sound: Todd was standing aside a tall wooden fence, wielding an axe; he had chopped his own head off. His body was still moving, just as a chicken continues to run after losing its head. His headless body continued to chop, one blow after another, the axe sailing through the air, hacking into the fence.