Magic

A month ago a Mephistophelian magic-worker was stalking me.  It was his dark trim beard and his seeing into my fearfulness that told me he was after my soul.  He warned me that he was going to “get me,” and that I should go prepare for this certain outcome, but he said this calmly, almost playfully, without pursuing me just then.  I too had superpowers, and I used them to prepare a defense.  I fused the doorways shut to my hiding place with electric heat that came from my fingers.  He disguised himself as a friendly blonde chap and fooled me into letting him in, demonstrating that he could get in whenever he wanted, laughingly amused by my efforts to keep him out but still not actively chasing me.  I escaped to an abandoned building, where I discovered a mighty, organic, double-stalked (heh) power-generating plant that was providing energy to the entire compound (it was even, I realized, powering my own magical fingers and my stalker’s shape-shifting ability). 

In this morning’s dream, the same Mephistophelian fellow and I were working together making an inventory of magical objects in an abandoned apartment late at night.  I would describe the object, he would write down my description in his notebook.  He was the specialist/interpreter, I was the witness/testifier.  We were to fully describe and safeguard the objects, almost like a forensics team.  Many of the objects were masks, invested with powerful energies, some of them quite sinister.  They had all been deactivated for the moment, but I sensed I could not, while describing them, gaze at them too long with selfish interest.  If I invested any degree of my own fascination into the examination and description, any kind of admiring energy, this would activate them, with unpredictable consequences.  There was one in particular I hoped to avoid awakening, as I felt a lot of destruction would be unleashed if it opened its eyes.  But it was the most fascinating to me.  I tried my best to be careful and neutral while describing it.

The magic specialist and I went to the basement of this building, the laundry room, to have a chat about the inventory away from the sleeping but potent masks.  I told him of my fear of awakening the masks while testifying about them.  He was not much taller than me, solidly built, and he was younger, in his early thirties.  He had the trim beard of my earlier dream, the same slightly receding hairline, and the same sense of certainty and fearlessness in his demeanor; he reassured me that he would confront and neutralize anything that got awakened.  He demonstrated his method of neutralizing dark energy by placing his right hand over my heart while looking into my eyes and reciting a forceful incantation that would banish any demon.  I knew I could trust him completely, that he had gone harrowing in dark places before, was partly supernatural himself, and that he understood these demons and had the power to neutralize them; and I felt relieved, safe.