Stay Out of My Dreams

My mother and father stared at each other throughout breakfast. I dreamed we have lived seven or eight lifetimes together my father said. My mother was irritated, possibly silently angry. I could see Christianity bristling up behind her eyes. She kept her mouth tight and straight, and replied with silent anger. I had no idea what reincarnation was, but stumbled on it a few years later. I was almost asleep when I felt my heart beating crazily. I was in an alley, in Chicago. It was the 1940’s, and I was a mobster's woman, chased down and caught. I heard myself gasp as I was thrown down. My throat was cut quickly from left to right. I woke up gasping, knowing this was not a mere dream. This had happened to me. To this day, I remember the feelings vividly, and the knowing. I finally understood why my mother had screamed this to my father. “Stay out of my dreams!” For she had dreamed of their seven shared reincarnations too.