Every waking moment
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The distant sound of my parents arguing downstairs is enough to wake me up. My eyes flicker open, incomprehension and then irritation coursing through me in quick succession. I scrunch my eyes shut and try to get back to sleep, but it’s already too late. It comes to me suddenly: I dreamt last night. Already the remembrance is dim, drifting away. I try with all my might to grab onto the last flickers of the dream and pull them back into me. They’re slippery, just out of reach. I’m assaulted with flashes of lurid feeling that, without context, I can make no sense of: a quiet pensiveness is followed by a growing unease and a burning curiosity. I’m still trying to work through these emotions when a barrage of pain shocks the breath out of me. No, not just pain; this is something more. Utter despair, debilitating helplessness, consuming sorrow. Frames displaying lines of spidery black calligraphy, dripping ink and horror and terror. Walls upon walls of ripped and stained and precious pictures. A dark aura that causes the dream me to bend over, barely able to move on. Crushing me, heavier than the weight Atlas bore. Distant screaming fills the air in that cave of sorrows. I am in the inner sanctum of a man driven insane by the supposed loss of his loved ones. The floor bleeds blood. When I blink, the blood is gone. A hallucination? No. I know the blood is still there, and will always be. I want to get out, but I can’t. I’m trapped. I-
-I cannot remember what comes next. My mind yields a blank, like it is a sleepy field after a fresh snowfall. The contrast between the dream and reality is absurd. The quietness in my room does not match up to anything. It is outrageously misplaced, a gunshot in the silent air. I take my pen in hand to record this incident in my dream notebook, but before I can begin, I find that, despite the fact that I hardly know who or what I dreamed about, tears have sprung to my eyes. I put my pen down, unable to continue, as salt water drips soundlessly down my face. And then, because I’m confused as to why I’m crying, I cry some more.
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