The articles have been few and infrequent lately, but that is due to personal factors. So here’s a story about a recurring dream I used to have as a kid. I call it Godzilla Cometh.
When I was very young and living in a quiet neighborhood in Kent, WA, which has since been annexed into Covington, WA, We, that is, my parents, brother, and I, lived in this three-bedroom house that our parents bought new. The house was yellow and sat at the bottom of two hills that we affectionately called the little hill and the big hill. The little hill was to the left of our house, and the big hill was directly in front.
The big hill was a good 200 feet in length and had a steep grade, which made it perfect for riding big wheels down and letting Sir Isaac Newton take us all the way down with a big spin out at the bottom. It was fun as hell, and all the neighborhood kids took turns; it didn’t matter whose big wheel it was, or what color they were. We were just kids having a good time. The other favorite thing to do with a big wheel was to see how close we could get to the garage door without hitting it on the spin out.
Those were fun times, but every once in a while, about twice a year, I would have this recurring dream where Godzilla came to the neighborhood looking for me. I just knew that if he found me, he would eat me. For whatever reason, everyone but myself had evacuated, so I was the only one left in the entire neighborhood.
I remember that as a kid, I always felt safe in my dad’s 1965 Plymouth Fury III. It was a bluish-green car with bench seats in the front and back; it finally gave up the ghost in the mid-80s. But whenever Godzilla came around, it was not parked in our driveway or garage. But I always found it parked in front of the Snider’s house. They lived a couple of blocks from the top of the big hill, just at the entrance to the more affluent part of the neighborhood called Shilo Woods.
As Godzilla drew closer, I would inevitably run to my dad’s car and somehow manage to hide under the front or back seat of the car, usually under the back. Then Godzilla would come by my dad’s car and pick it up, look inside for me, set it down, and walk through Shilo Woods. I was safe for another few months before his next return.
I kept having this very same dream until I was about 13, and then it stopped until I was around 27. I was still in the Army then and stationed in Italy. It was the end of a long day and the start of the weekend. But I was exhausted, fell asleep, and found myself in a familiar place. Though my parents sold that house long ago, when I was in the living room of my childhood home, it looked just as it did back then. Wouldn’t you know it, Godzilla Cometh.
I ran to the Snider’s house as I had always done as a kid, and somehow I hid under the back seat just as I had always done, but this time Godzilla did not pick up the car. He just peered inside and walked through Shilo Woods. The dream had always ended with Godzilla walking through Shilo Woods, but this time I got out of my dad’s Plymouth, picked it up, and threw it at Godzilla.
To this day, I don’t know what the dream was really about or why it came back for one last time. It had always been exactly the same, except for this last time. But since that time, the dream has never returned.