A Sampling of Dreams

Friday night’s dream is a girl in a tomb. She sits on the edge of the stone slab meant for her resting place, swinging her long legs. She is wrapped in a green silk cloth. When she sees me she jumps down from the slab and brushes her wispy blond hair back from her sallow face. She stops and stares at me with slow, intense deliberation. Her eyes are sunken, two round shadows in the cold paleness of her face, like two footprints in the fresh snowdrifts of her high cheekbones. Her mouth was red, a splash of blood in that snow; beautiful, and blind. I look into her snow-cave eyes and she gazes back at me-—through me-—with a sort of absent-minded hardness.

“Spirit cooking.” She says to me, her voice so dark and low it seems as if my ears are submerged in deep water.

“But we have no pots,” I say, feeling dazed and lightheaded. There is something in the air here.
~*~

On a Wednesday night it snows in my mind as I sleep. A stark snow of isolation and cold gasps; of brute survival and fear and you could scream scream scream your lungs out and your voice would fall dead on the ground, absorbed instantly by this fearful snow, and silence would rein again. Absolute silence, and tense; the silence that edges every hidden terror. Not a sound to be heard, but you know that at any moment something could be behind you. Look now, make sure, look the other way, find yourself spinning in circles till you fall in that sinister snow and lie there shivering. You stay because at least now your back is covered. Now watch the sky and wait. In my dream I waited for the twisted face and milky eyes, the waxy skin sporadically interrupted by shocks of course hair, the long spindled fingers like vices that crush my ankle as I am dragged, and uneven stumpy legs that somehow still moved swift and quietly through the thin woods. Bound and gagged in the warehouse I pray it won’t hurt when I am crucified.
~*~

On Thursday night, I dream I am a child. I am peering nervously out from underneath a clothing rack, lost amid the bright, cheap hues of Walmart. Mommy had left me and somehow I know she isn’t coming back. I cry; I wake up crying.
~*~

Another night, I dream that I am miraculously, inexplicably pregnant with a puppy. I am in a soft pink hospital suite, closely monitored considering the curiousness of my particular case. There is a treadmill in my room; the doctors want me to walk a little every day. A television mounted in an upper corner plays an old black-and-white movie. I am excited; I have never liked babies very much but I love puppies. Somewhere deep down I always wondered if I would really like my own baby very much, if I ever had one. But I have no doubt I will love a puppy. Sonogram pictures taped to the wall by my bed depict the fuzzy image of a tiny canine, curled and sleeping with eyes shut tight. As is typical with dreams, the gravity of the dream's absurdity does not occur to me until the morning.
~*~

A few nights ago, I dream of a serpent-like demon. She sparkles blue, so bright in my eyes, and possesses pretty little things; lovely little trinkets. Golden eggs, lipstick and feathers, pieces of glass, chandelier baubles and empty bottles of wine, polished stones and wind chimes. Things that catch the light; things I like to touch. I am drawn to the mysterious beauty of these things, like a moth into the deeper darkness behind a deadly flame. My gaze lingers for too long, and I reach my fingers slowly out to touch the shining surfaces. Through the sparkles my demon mistress pulls me into her world; her black labyrinth. I wander through black marble hallways, occasionally passing doors set deep into the walls. There are many doors, each leading into stark, foggy white rooms. One door leads to safety; somehow I know it. I know the search for this room is perilous, though; I know that behind one of the doors the demon waits, and she will pull me into the white to sit stiffly on a cold wrought-iron bench. She will float before me, three times my size. She speaks evil things to me in whispers that are soft yet sharp, filling my ears like razor blades hidden in folds of velvet. She curses my family and blasphemes my God; she asks me if I agree with this bile. I tell her no. She takes my shoulder in her mouth and crushes it with her white-hot teeth. She asks me again if I agree. Again I tell her no. Again she bites, my other shoulder this time. This happens four more times. Body and soul I am wracked with pain and terror and burning guilt for wanting oh so wanting to just give in and damn everything I love, just to escape; just for relief.
~*~

Last night I dreamed the world ended, so I came back to you.
In the aftermath you buttoned my jacket against the ash and cold, and helped me put things into the torn paper shopping bag that was all I’d held on to when the city went bang. Sparkles in the crumbled sidewalks winked up at us through grimy rubble as we wandered. No one in the streets, no one else anywhere. We were so isolated, you and I, walking together without a thought of whatever had separated us before. What did yesterday’s conflicts matter now that our only bed was a burnt-up limousine, half-smashed in the gutter? There was a certain peace in the lack of choice, in the way the apocalypse rendered every previous concern irrelevant. How we were forced together in pure survival because suddenly there was nothing, no one else alive on the bare smoldering planet. No one else to help me tie my shoes when my fingers were cold and numb.
Last night I dreamed the world ended,so I came back to you.


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