by Maya Castleman
The Preston Bluff Dispatch is an occasional e-news source for the residents of Preston County, Texas, and any who care about what happens here. Preston Bluff (pop. 300 on voting day) is the largest settlement in the smallest county in Texas. Named for Captain Thomas Jefferson Preston, who founded a fort on the bluff overlooking the Navasota in the 1850s, both the county and the town have seen their share of Texas history. This site will be maintained by Maya Castleman and her great-uncle, known simply as Castleman, whose family has lived here since they came into Texas as slaves when cotton was king. Residents are welcome to post news, comments, and photos. The Castlemans will censor only the crude and the rude.
Almost every day is a slow news day in Preston Bluff, but when Kyle Thelen oversleeps and doesn’t bake biscuits before opening his All-American Diner at 7 am, in fact doesn’t even open up until 9 am, you can bet the town will buzz. However, no one else had appeared at the diner this morning by the time Kyle unlocked the entrance and flipped over the Closed sign. Now that’s big news.
The usual early coffee crew slumbered well past their accustomed dawn risings. Postmistress Dorcas Tucker failed to open her post office kiosk in the diner, not because Kyle was negligent but because she was in a deep slumber well past eight am, “slathered in night cream and curled under my electric blanket,” as she admitted. Even Jimmy Purvis was still asleep in his old farmhouse south of the bluff, and Jimmy always wakes when Wall Street opens in New York to track his investments on the internet.
Not only did every single soul in Preston Bluff oversleep this morning - including dogs, cats, parrots, roosters, cows, horses, sheep, rabbits, black bears and feral hogs, if those could be said to have souls, and who can say otherwise with certainty – but those who could speak for themselves reported thick and complex dreams the likes of which they couldn’t remember having before. There may have been a few of the town’s three hundred or so folks who didn’t dream or oversleep, but as of a hurried survey by mid-day none had been found.
Folks talked about their dreams all over the Bluff as the day unfolded. As of this late afternoon report no clear unifying themes have emerged. It may be weeks before an account can be given of the nature of the majority of them. Many people admit to having forgotten their dreams as soon as they awoke; they retain the dim and sodden sensation of having dreamed but haven’t been able to describe a single image or feeling.
Many confided in no more than a spouse, friend or co-worker. Others flocked to the community’s main gathering points to discuss their dreams in a public manner that may in fact have complicated matters to the point of altering the dreamers’ perceptions. One could find active discussions among people who didn’t have to be at jobs in the daytime at First Baptist, Kyle’s Diner, Irene Garcia Tarpley’s Unisex Salon and Retirement Home, and Hank Rawls’s Preston Falls Inn. The Methodists went to Kyle’s after finding a note on the church door informing them their minister had gone there for coffee.
The most fervent and perhaps concerned conversations occurred at First Baptist, where Ruth Ann Bobo took charge while Marsha Bailey made a generous urn of coffee in the fellowship hall. The more hopeful of the congregation wondered if their communal dreams were portents of the Rapture. Others, though, feared they had been the victims of an alien invasion. Preacher Roberts wasn’t sure what to say; he didn’t think the Rapture was upon them and yet knew he’d see “a spike in attendance and tithing” if he hinted that were the case. An honest man, he told his flock as much. His own dream had been quite pedestrian; all he would say was that it had taken place in Larry Gordon’s Stop & Shop and had something to do with “an accident in the tomato sauce aisle.”
Ruth Ann’s had been quite ethereal. She was certain it was about the Rapture. She had fallen deep into water that looked “something like the dolphin tank” she’d seen last year visiting the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. But she hadn’t felt fear. Instead, something came from beneath her – “maybe a dolphin,” Dee Dee Smith suggested – and carried her to the surface. From there she continued to ascend, as if she “no longer was bound by the laws of gravity.” Right before Ruth Ann woke she was high above clouds that were rolling and swirling around her, “like being at the top of the world.”
In Irene’s salon Sarah Griggs offered an explanation for the mass dreaming phenomenon that gained popularity among many as the day went on. The Griggs hypothesis is that it was the result of interference by the town’s resident ghost, Nadeena Preston, the Captain’s ill-fated second wife. Nadeena often is cited as the instigator of domestic unrest who seems to delight in making people fall in love with the wrong mates. A teenaged mulatto the Captain found in New Orleans, she fell in love with a young Comanche; both died jumping off the bluff’s “lover’s leap” early one morning when her husband discovered them together. (Alternative versions of the story abound, including a widespread belief that Preston shot the two.) “If Nadeena can mess up individuals,” Griggs opined, “why can’t she get into all of our dreams at once?”
Larry Gordon couldn’t leave his store to sit in on the group discussions, but he argued to anyone who visited his Stop & Shop across the street from the diner that some sort of electrical energy surge, like a solar flare, activated everyone’s brains. He reminded residents there had been a fairly dramatic thunderstorm in the wee hours; the National Weather Service tracked it heading northeast from Georgetown through Preston Bluff at 5:17 am. The town’s self-described science expert, Larry pointed out that the brain emits electrical impulses at a rate of about 12 watts. “If our brains got a lot of extra electricity all of a sudden, our dream mechanisms might go kind of wonky,” he explained.
There has been no evidence of a spike in crime as a result of the mass dreaming. In fact, Sheriff Sonny Hladacek reports that his office has had no calls so far today for any reason whatsoever. Even the two people in the local jail slept most of the day. “To sleep, perchance to dream,” he laughed, “might be the ticket for world peace.”
Further information and ramifications of the Preston Bluff dream day will be reported as appropriate. Residents are encouraged to keep dream journals and share those with the Dispatch. We get a steady dose of reality as it is; perhaps the county will benefit from sharing our dreams.
A long line of motorcyclists rode down one block but then were turned off to the side by police, apparently according to plan. “We never did find out why they did that,” Marsha said, expressing disappointment that she could barely see the Harleys from where she stood.
