/ The air in the dream was heavy, smelling of river mud and old paper. The old man’s soul stood in a dark, formless void, face-to-face with the ghost of Andrew Jackson. The tyrant stood tall, still wrapped in the arrogant, polished myth of the “Great Man” that the history books had built for him
.
“Why are you disturbing my rest, old man?” Jackson demanded, his voice echoing with the expectation of absolute authority.
The old man didn’t even have to think about his reply. The righteous indignation that had struck him at Horseshoe Bend flared instantly. “You will NEVER rest; I will see to that!”
Jackson’s eyes narrowed, looking back at him with the cold hubris that had once stolen 23 million acres of land with a single signature
. “Don’t you know who I am? Do you realize what I did made America what it is today?”
The old man stepped closer, unafraid of the ghost. He knew exactly what Jackson’s America was built on—the bones of twenty-five thousand Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole people, and the stolen labor of enslaved African Americans
. “And what is that exactly, Andrew?”
Jackson’s temper flared, demanding the respect he had always forced from others. “THATS MR. Pr—”
“NO you’re not!” the old man roared, cutting him off completely. He refused to give him the title he had never truly earned
. “You’ve been a worm feast for 200 years. I still walk the trail!”
Jackson glared at him, a cold, venomous sneer crossing his face. “You will never rest either, old man.”
“It’s not my time to rest,” the old man replied, his voice dropping into a hard, unbreakable steel
. “It’s time to rend and destroy. Your legacy is grasped in my fist. My intention is to destroy your hold on the future by reminding them of your past.”
The old man thought of the young teachers he was seeking out, and the counter-camp he was building to tear down the Hermitage’s youth programs
. “You should see the generation of today. These aren’t even the kids we were. They are smarter and perceptive; they will soon set alight your legacy, then your Hermitage. Yes, it will be gone, too.”
The old man bolted awake.
He sat up in the dark, his heart hammering against his ribs, the air conditioner humming quietly in his Limestone County home. He looked at the clock glowing on the nightstand. 3 AM.
The lingering chill of the dream clung to his skin. He remembered the phantom smell of the river and the sheer arrogance in Jackson’s eyes. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face with his scarred hands. The generational trauma, the displaced families, the ghost roads of Alabama—it had always surrounded him in the waking world
. But this was different.
“There is no part of my life this man hasn’t tried to destroy,” the old man whispered into the dark room. “Now he’s in my dreams.”

.