 |
"As
the ocean roared in my ears, I saw a terrible scene of a flooded land.
Houses lay strewn and broken - their parts, once strong, now nothing more
than stones upon a watery grave. And strangely... against the rushing noise
in my ears, I heard the distant cry of over a thousand souls... muted and
suddenly cut by silence.
I knew instinctively, I was seeing the floods of 1953 which claimed the lives of over 1800 people in the Delta region. For a moment, in the confusion, I thought I was at the Delta Expo watching an old news film, as Larry and I had done the day before. But there was something far more real and urgent... and a sense that these images had not originated from a human perspective or captured by our technology. It was as if the sea itself was filling my mind even as it filled my lungs!" |
|
 It
is easy for me to think back now and describe this dream sequence to you
but you must remember events were far more illogical at the time. For example,
I remember opening my eyes in the water (or was this part of the
dream?) and seeing a fish-like creature riding over a grid of light. It
spoke to me... really... it did - or that's the way it seemed at the time!
It said only two words, and I must confess that when it spoke, it sounded
like Larry after he has drank too much beer. It said: "thank
you!" |
"In this dream, I was not just me... but Lizzie and also me! It seemed natural at the time: the mind is tricky! Maybe this was a subconscious thing... me wishing I was her and safe above instead of drowning here alone?" |
|
"Then like a stream, images came one by one, like frantic pourings from some timeless memory - urgent to share its experiences. They showed a desperate struggle of man against the sea. Great minds planned a mighty dam to hold back the sea... and mighty machines were built to turn idea into reality!" |
 |
"The sea bed was to be covered with special mats made far away and transported on special sheets which would lay them." |
| "The sea was the enemy! The people of the Netherlands had decided once and for all to shut-off its wild penetrations into their homeland. Nothing would stop them until it was truly held at bay: all tidal inlets (except the ports of Rotterdam & Amsterdam) would be closed by man-made barriers!" |  |
"As I saw the ships in my mind, I felt an emotion not born from my soul: it was fear and terror! I felt it from the sea itself... like a 'collective' response from the life within it!" |
  |
"As the sea held me then, clutched in its watery hand - my fate in its dark cloak - so did I sense a time long ago when 'it' too sensed its own fate held within the closing fist of humankind!" |  |
