The Dusty Road
I came into this vision walking down a road in a very dry land. There were no trees that I could see. There was grazing land or fields on either side of the road we walked that were harvested down to the nub. You couldn’t even tell what had grown there.
The man I was walking with was silent. Focused but relaxed, he walked with his hands behind his back, leaning a little into his walk. He was looking straight ahead.
He looked to be about in his late thirties. He had golden brown hair, trim and thinning at the top. His skin was blemish free: glowing health, no freckles or other marks. His eyes were light colored but I couldn’t determine the exact color from the angle, looking at him from the side.
The odd thing about him was that he was wearing all white. His shirt was a button up, with long sleeves rolled up above the elbows. The sleeves looked to be a little on the full side, giving his shirt a robe-like appearance. His pants were white linen and he was wearing brown slip-on loafers. I noticed the dust of the road was on them.
The road was powdery-dry. No rain had touched this place for a long time. We said nothing to each other. Just walked in silence.
I was just thinking it was remarkable that I had no idea how long we had been walking and I wasn’t the least bit tired or winded when we crested a mild knoll. In the distance ahead, I could see one of those green signs with white letters telling me how close we were to the next town.
I didn’t notice the name of the town, but I did see the distance: Eight miles.
As I looked for an expression on my walking companion’s face, he suddenly spoke without looking my way. “Just spoke to Eddie.” He said in a tone of voice that revealed a fondness for “Eddie”. He paused a second or two, then added, “Only six miles to go”. (Eddie was my husband in real life).
I looked at the sign in the distance, then looked at my walking companion in linen. I felt the need to correct him. “You mean eight miles don’t you”?
The man then turned his head, continuing to walk. The way he looked at me suggested I should know what he was talking about. I said “The sign says eight miles”.
The man said to me, “Eddie has SIX miles to go”.
My mouth dropped and I stopped walking for a second. What was he trying to tell me? Six miles? Six MONTHS?
Thoughts raced through my head, like “Oh my God, we have to tell his family, we have to prepare them!”
Without any words that man seemed to have heard my thoughts. He responded to me, “I wouldn’t worry about Eddie. Eddie is fine. It’s the others you have to worry about. They don’t know . . .”
As he said that I thought “that’s what I mean, we have to prepare them”. Then the man continued his sentence:
“They don’t know they’re already dead”.
And I awoke with those words in my head.
