Slowly, I began the process of coming back to reality – the part where you remind yourself that “it was only a dream.” I awoke to a quiet and a stillness that clashed with the frenzied dream, and at first, I was disoriented. Then, just as I thought everything was lost, I made a mad lunge – stretching out as far as I could – scooping her up into my arms and to safety. I passed up my father and came within a few feet of her. I pushed my legs furiously, watching the cars that were closing in on her, and I knew time was running out. She ran down the street and though he tried, he could not catch up with her. I bolted out of the house, but he had a head start and was closer. I saw my reason for living gone.Īlmost instantly, my father ran after her. I saw cars at the end of the street coming her way. A sense of fear and dread that only a parent can understand ran through me. Suddenly, my daughter turned and ran into the street. I just felt a sense of calm, of peace, and of all things being right with the world. It did not strike me as unusual that my father was alive, well, and playing with his four-year-old granddaughter. I watched from inside the house as my wife went about making dinner. There he was, albeit somewhat older, doing his patented “I’ve got your nose” gag, and making her squeal with laughter. In this dream, I was at home with my wife. A dream where you not only see, hear, and smell the people it in, but you feel them. Suffice to say, that’s generally how I feel about dream interpretation. I walked right into the middle of the circle and said to her with a straight face, “Last night, I had a dream I was in a pit of naked men, covered in honey. Questions about unicorns, and rainbows, and swimming with dolphins. Enthusiastic and hopeful believers were peppering her with all sorts of questions, trying to discover the hidden meaning in their dreams. As I listened to the conversation, I realized that she was doing dream interpretations. Once, at a party, I noticed a large group of people surrounding a lady who was clearly holding court. Yet the only thing I could never come to terms with was that he would never get to meet my children – or they him. Possessing all my good traits and none of my flaws.Įventually, I accepted the fact that he wouldn’t there for the important and special events in my life. He was like me, but without the asshole part. He was the greatest person I’d ever known.Īt the time of his death, I loved him more than I loved anyone else in my life, and only with the birth of my children have I loved someone more. In the thirty years since I’ve thought about my father often. But still, nothing in those twenty-four months prepared me for the day we lowered his casket into the ground. In the two years that followed there was plenty of sorrow and pain, and surprisingly, joy as well. One of those annoying cancerous tumors had decided it would call his brain home. He was rushed to the hospital and given a CAT scan, which found the source of the problem. Then he had a seizure and fell to the floor. Everything after that’s a blank.ĭuring a presentation at his office, my father had frozen on a word. I hung in with her until the part about a brain tumor. It’s a measured, concerned type of tone that attempts to convey the message, “yes, we have a situation here, but let’s take things step by step and not get ahead of ourselves.” In her WASPy tone – a tone which makes me cringe when I hear it come out of my mouth – she began to give me the “facts.” When I arrived at the office someone handed me a phone, at the other end of which I heard my mother’s voice. “You need to go to the front office,” he said. My teacher picked up the receiver, listened intently, then hung up. The clock began ticking the day the phone rang in my homeroom class during my senior of high school. I had two years to prepare for the death of my father. The truth is, all you really feel is numb. The word “hurt” implies that you feel something. The better your aim, you more money you'll be able to earn and spend on upgrades and other power-ups for your next mission.When the person you love most dies, it doesn’t hurt. Throughout your race for survival you'll find weapons that can be upgraded, as long as you shoot at certain points on the zombies. To best the super warriors in Dead Target you'll have to put your aim and reflexes to the test: one wrong move will leave you at the mercy of waves of zombies that want nothing more than to exterminate you. Find first-aid kits to recover your zombie wounds if you don't want to end up turning into one of them yourself. This first-person game will make you feel the terror of the most utterly horrific zombie attacks. You have to exterminate all the undead that hunt the planet, trying to find some sign of life that will help you rebuild the planet. Dead Target situates you in the middle of a hypothetical World War III, where you're the only survivor of a zombie attack.