Who To Ask?

Grey metal door. Push the horizontal bar to exit.
Push.
No exit.

Exit to where? Anywhere but here, I think , because I don't know where here is.
It's indoors.
My good dreams are always out-of-doors.
I am in-of-doors.
The door.
I am in it.
Push it to not exit.
Goddamn it. I try to kick it, but I don't have enough control, my legs aren't connected.
Push.

Push it and it becomes a pinball machine. Silver streaks and yellow flags spinning, strobe lights in the bumpers going crazy; multi-ball action; target scores 'Special' when lit and the machine cracks like a starter pistol, K-POW!
Free game.
When is a door not a pinball machine?
Now.
It's ajar, then open.

It's gone and I'm on a large grassy field. I recognize this place.
It's a sort of gigantic outdoor horseshoe-shaped amphitheatre, with a beach and ocean at the top of the 'U' and a surrounding series of hills and steep, cutback-trail cliffs providing enough sitting and standing room for the population of a small city. It's currently deserted.

This is the first time I have ever been on the field, I'm usually up there, on the cliffs, watching the show with my friends, real and imaginary.
My friends are not here. No one is here.
There is no show. No audience.
There's usually a stage set up on the beach's far end. It is not there.
There's usually an ocean beyond the beach, but it isn't there either.
There's nothing but sand.

If there is a horizon, I can't see it from here.
When awake, we tend to take the horizon for granted.
Here it's a luxury.

The only thing missing is a sun-bleached cattle skull, I think, and suddenly a skull appears.
I cannot determine how far away it is because it's difficult to gauge distance without a horizon. It has a sense of bigness to it, at least the size of a tall building and it's human-shaped, not bovine.
The cranium is distended and warped, like a Dali canvas viewed in a carnival mirror designed by H.R. Giger.
It ripples like water.

I wish that it would go away.

Something is wrong.
There should be a stage with a good band playing and some bonfires for dancing.
This is a party beach, a fun place to be. There's always something happening here and there's always someone to share it with.
My most frequent companion on this beach is the character 'Willow' from the old 'Buffy' TV show- not the actress who plays her, but the character herself.
I wish she was here.
She isn't.
There's just me , a twenty-story tall surrealist skull and the sun, which is suddenly scorching hot.

I'm naked and afraid of getting sunburn.

"Hey, you are gonna miss the race."

Willow? I hear a voice, but there is no one here.

Out in the desert, beyond the deliriously grinning skull, a cloud of dust is rising.
It's getting larger, faster. A vast army is approaching.
I feel panic.
I am in no mood for armies.

"Don't worry. They are only horses."

It's Willow. I can't see her, but she is talking to me and she is right.
There are thousands of horses rushing towards me from the non-horizon.
The stampeding herd circumnavigates the bony monolith, reforms on the other side of the giant misshapen thing, gallops closer.
I close my eyes.
Listen.
The sound of their hooves is very loud and comforting.
They aren't far away.
I can't move, but I don't have to worry.
They are horses and I am not afraid of horses.
Horses won't hurt me.

For a time, I am surrounded by thundering animals, the beasts moving so rapidly that I can barely distinguish one from the other.
A mane. A flank. A hoof. An eye.
The horses become a wall, moving at the speed of stripes.
I am protected. I won't be trampled.
Horses know me. I am safe with them.

Then they are gone.

There are no tracks in the sand.
Did I imagine the stampede?
Who can I ask?

Willow's voice has vanished.
The skull has nothing to say.