Delusion

Stream of consciousness moments after waking this afternoon:

She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.  We fell in love and took her home.  Two days later Charlotte left to run errands and I had the baby all to myself for the first time.  I carried her everywhere with me around the house.  We were at my house, but it was the old house on Folkstone, where I lived with my mom when I was a teenager.  I suddenly caught myself without the baby.  I panicked.  Where is she? Oh god where is she?  I walked back into the living room, there she was, on the floor, laughing.  Jesus christ, relief.  I walk with her back to the kitchen and continue house things.  Later, I lose track of her again.  Oh jesus, where is she where is she.  I run into the living room and she's on the couch, between the cushions, face down.  I run over and pick her up.  She's alive but her lips are blue.  I cry out and hold her.  I blow air over her face.  She's breathing, she smiles at me, the blue disappears from her face.  Again and again, I keep losing her, I don't know why.  I don't remember setting her down at any time, I just suddenly find myself without her.  Then, I lose her again.  I can't find her right away.  I search the living room.  The cushions, the floor.  No baby.  I go back into the kitchen and look around for her.  I don't see her anywhere.  On hands and knees, I scan the entire floor of both rooms.  I check the couch again.  I look at the bench in the kitchen, I look high and low.  I check the shelves between the books.  Anywhere a baby could conceivably fit.  I grow more and more desperate and panicked.  I don't remember her leaving my arms.  I get on hands and knees again. I search the edge of each room.  I look under the dishwasher and my heart jumps.  I think I see something underneath, a bundle.  I reach in and pull out an old bundle of socks.  Fuck.  I look under the oven.  Nothing there.  My face slides against the tile as I move my body along every shelf, searching the 3 inch space underneath.  I go back to the living room and throw the cushions everywhere, searching fruitlessly.  I cry out, horrified.  News articles flash through my brain of children left outside and stolen, or forgotten in hot cars, or left on their own in kitchens only to have something fall on them.  What horrible parents, what forgetful, terrible, awful parents.  I'm a horrible, awful, forgetful parent.  Back to the kitchen.  On hands and knees again.  My hand slides into every dark corner, every forgotten space.  Nothing.  I stand up and hear a faint crying.  Faint enough to wonder if I really heard it at all.  I can't pinpoint where it was.  I cry out her name and run back into the living room.  I scan the floor for anything that might have fallen.  Anything that might be heavy enough to have fallen on her and silenced her and taken her from me.  My eyes are flashing everywhere.  I can't think, can't feel.  Nothing but desperation, panic, failure.  Heather walks into the kitchen and I go to her, screaming to her, crying out I cant find my baby i can't find my baby.  She tells me it will turn up.  I can't believe she is so nonchalant.  Heather, I lost her, I can't find her.  She picks up her keys to leave and points to the other side of the room.  She's over there.  I shift my head so fast my eyes spin in their sockets.  I look at where I think she's pointing and see nothing.  Where, fucking where.  She points again and I see that she's pointing at the side of my head, near my right temple, but I only see the height of her finger with my peripheral vision.  I see that she is pointing at about the height of the bookshelves across the room.  Your baby is right there, she says, still pointing.  Call your wife and she will help you.  Then she leaves without another word.  I sprint across the room and books fly across the kitchen.  I empty the shelves of cookbooks, plants, pictures.  No baby.  I can't spare the few seconds to make a phone call, I have to keep searching.  I know she's here somewhere.  How could she not be?  I cry.  She left me, she left me!  I get on hands and knees and search the rooms for the 5th or 6th time, whos counting.  A car arrives in the carport.  I'm expecting Colin and Stephanie.  They'll know what to do.  They'll know what to do.  I open the door to the carport from the kitchen.  Bonnie and Uncle Winston are there.  I meekly, weakly mumble I can't find my baby I can't find my baby.  They can see the pain on my twisted, contorted face.  I cant find her please help me.  I push past them, excuse me i'm sorry it's good to see you but i can't.  Colin and Stephanie are in the carport.  Colin is in the drivers seat.  Stephanie is pushing the car into the carport while Colin drives.  The car is dead for some reason.  I can't find my baby, I can't find my baby.  Please help me.  I can barely push out the words at all.  I'm choking, sobbing, desperate.  Stephanie rolls her eyes at me and doesn't think I see but I do.  Why are they so slow why are they not helping me.  I wake up.  I don't have a baby.  I am alone and I have no children.  It takes me several seconds to convince myself that I have no baby.

For you.

I'm looking at the stars.  I can see the closest arm of the Milky Way staring down at me.  There must be someone looking down at us, same as I'm laying here looking at them.  How are things for them?  I assume that if they're technologically advanced, they must have emotions to govern their progress, right?  Perhaps not.  Do they feel fear, anger, sadness, same as us?

I think I must be hungrier than I thought.  I can't help but wonder what they must eat.  What kinds of fruits, begetables, meats do they enjoy?  What do they have that we do not even have a category for?  Would we even be able to enjoy them or would they just kill us as quickly as arsenic?  A delicacy for them, the sweetest of their fruits, might calcify our livers, or make our hearts explode from our chests.  Maybe ours do the same to them.  Perhaps our greatest weapon in the coming alien invasion is the humble potato.

I bet they love as fiercely as we do.  What else could drive them?  Or maybe that's just the naivete of the human condition speaking.  Hatred, I suppose, can be every bit as efficient as love, perhaps more so, in motivating people.  Or maybe hatred is just a manifestation of a different kind of impassioned love.

Either way, I love you and I'm glad that we live on the same planet.  One where love is tangible and real, where it is socially acceptable to chew on your lip and hold your hand and one where a baked potato fills our stomachs, rather than liquifying them through our assholes.

55 Word Story

The century old buildings clustered around the town square leaned upon each other like old friends who'd had too much to drink.  They had weathered the onslaught of war and the continuous red tide of plague.  It wasn't until a century after the tracks had been laid that the shiny steely derailment proved their undoing.

Coincidence

I found an idea the other day for one of the best writing prompts I've ever heard.  Digital cameras take pictures and assign each one a number, which usually takes the form of "IMG_0123".  I googled this format, replacing the 123 with a random three digit number and then chose three images from the first page before they had a chance to load, making them entirely random.  With those three images, I created a story.

This is the first I've written in a while and probably the first time I've posted to this page something that wasn't depressing or fear-inducing, so I hope it's as enjoyable to read as it was for me to write.


IMG_0382

The wind blew against his face and whipped past his ears and the last thing he saw before everything went black was the truck as it came thundering around the corner. 

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"Ah, and here I was expecting to see another styrofoam ball solar system.  Tell me what you guys got."

Mr Miller was young.  Too young, he thought sometimes, to have such a responsibility as teaching these kids the complexities of tectonic movement and life around deep sea vents.  He was fresh faced, fresh minded and fresh out of school. 

"Its a volcano," she said, her arms behind her back, one thin hand grasping another thin wrist. 
"Yeah, Mr Miller, you'll like it."  The other one stuttered, his gaze shifting to the other side of the room.  His eyes widened as a boiled egg was suddenly sucked into the bottom of a flask, extinguishing the match beneath.

"Yeah?  Well it sure looks cool," Mr Miller said.  "Show me how it works."  He crossed his arms and planted his feet, furrowing his brow in his best make-my-day stance. 

Kaylee giggled, her huge orange shirt making her look even smaller than she actually was.  Mr Miller had told the kids to wear one of their parents' old shirts today, knowing they'd be destroyed.  Billy, his attention still anywhere but at his own table, had already proved the importance of that good judgement.  The smears of invisible ink that had turned out not so invisible after all decorated the front of his shirt in a mockery of good tie-dye.

"It's all about the vinegar, Mr Miller," the third one said with a hint of disdain in her voice.  Ash liked to be the leader, he'd assessed.  If she was there, she was in charge.  She reached for the measuring cup at the edge of the table.

"I want to do it!", Kaylee whined, her shrill voice rising as she quickly brought her hands out in front of her, one set of thin fingers curling around a measuring cup full of smelly liquid.  Ash, the leader, redoubled her efforts, reaching towards the measuring cup as Kaylee brought it to her side, away from Ash's hands.  "I'm in charge, you little brat." 

"You did it last time!", the smaller one pleaded, the vinegar sloshing agaisnt the sides of the cup.  Billy was across the room now, two liters of diet coke under one arm and a roll of Mentos in his hand.  Mr Miller's pocket vibrated. 

"Girls! Come on, I want to see this thing go.  Ash", he said, stepping around the table and pulling the two girls gently apart, "why don't you tell me what happens while Kaylee does the first step of whatever cool thing you guys have put together?"  Ash looked up at him, her lips dramatically forming into a pout, "But Mr Miller, she doesn't even know how to do it!"  He felt Kaylee push against his side, measuring cup held protectively to her chest.  "I do too!" 

Mr Miller wondered how they'd ever gotten even so far as having the volcano here.  He was fairly certain the only chemical reaction he'd be likely to see in this five foot area was the deadly reaction of girl + girl = explosion.  "It's vinegar, right?", he said quickly, trying to stop the killing before it began.  "I didn't even want to do this stupid experiment anyway," Ash stated, storming off across the room in a huff, nose up and feet stomping. 

Kaylee set the measuring cup down next to the volcano and moved her eyes to look up at Mr Miller without lifting her head.  "She's a jerkface."  Mr Miller couldn't help but laugh.  "You know you're not supposed to call anyone names, Kaylee."  His pocket vibrated again as he kneeled beside her, resting his elbow against the surface of the table.  "Well she is.  She's always trying to boss everyone around."  She turned her whole body away from her teacher, the sulkiest face on the planet forming over her features. 

Mr Miller looked around conspiratorily, leaning towards Kaylee.  "She's not over here now, you know, so it looks to me like you're the boss."  He clapped his hand on her shoulder.  "Now come on, I want to see this thing go!"  He stood up and put his face directly over the volcano, peering down into the open vent.  He raised one hand, extending his finger and sticking it down into the opening. 

"Stop!  No, you'll mess it up!"  Kaylee darted over towards him, slapping his hand out of the way and giggling in spite of herself.  "Well if you dont show me I'm gonna have to do it myself," Mr Miller said, slowly going for the measuring cup.  "I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it!"  Kaylee grasped the measuring cup and lifted it towards the volcano.  Little girls were as bipolar as they came.

Mr Miller's pocket vibrated again.  "Watch this, Mr Miller, watch."  Kaylee dipped the measuring cup over as he fished in his pocket, wondering what could possibly be so important this early in the day.  An unknown number flashed over the touch screen.  He hated using his phone during class but he couldn't help the funny feeling that washed over him just as the first trickle of vinegar disappeared into the depths of Kaylee's paper mache experiment. 

"Hello, is this Mr Miller?", the disembodied voice inquired into his ear, his mouth curling into a smile as he watched the first frothy explosion erupt down the sides of the paper mache.  Kaylee jumped into the air, her ponytail flipping up behind her as she clapped her hands.  "See?  Isn't it so cool?", she said.  Ash rolled her eyes from across the room, arms still firmly across her chest. 
"Awesome!", he said, raising his fist towards Kaylee's hand, her fist meeting his in the best kind of congratulatory gesture.  "This is he," Mr Miller answered into the phone.

"This is Kandburg Regional Hospital.  It's about your brother."  Diet coke fizzed around his shoes.  Billy ran past him, shirttails flapping. 

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The hospital was cold.  Hospitals are always cold.  Mr Miller checked his watch, his foot tapping impatiently against the white tile.  He wrung his sweaty hands and looked up and down the emergency room again, leaning to look towards the double doors on the far side.  His hands fell to his knees and he raised himself up, breathing in heavily.  "Excuse me, miss?", he said, his eyes lighting on the nearest nurse.  She wiped her hands on her blue scrubs, "Sir, I told you already, we'll let you know as soon as we know."  She offered a tired smile to him.  "Just take a seat, okay?"  She stepped around the counter, placing one hand on his shoulder and guiding him towards the row of straight-back chairs with happy green plants on either end. 

He shrugged her off, running his palm across his forehead and over his short brown hair.  "Fuck," he muttered.  "Fuck fuck fuck."  He walked towards the window, only realizing after he was standing directly in front of it that the blinds were closed.  A stab of guilt shot through him.  He knew he shouldn't have bought his brother that skateboard. 

"Sir?"

He looked down at the woman seated next to him.  "God,", he blurted, looking back to the window quickly.  The baby in her arms had only looked up at him for a moment, but it was a long enough moment to give him an eyefull of round pink nipple, a drop of milk still clinging to it as if for dear life.  She didn't try to cover herself up.  He looked again, suddenly self-conscious that maybe it was rude to be self-conscious about something so natural.  The baby turned back to the task at hand. 

"What's a 12 letter word for fluke?"  Mr Miller shifted from one foot to the other, attempting to look anywhere on earth but at this woman next to him.  She held her phone in one hand, the daily crossword taking any attention she might have otherwise put towards this man staring no where else but at her nipple.  Her breast seemed almost to be coming at him from around the baby's head.  She leaned toward the table in front of her, dropping her phone in her lap.  Magazines slid over each other as she pulled a diet coke from the table's surface.  She lifted the soda to her lips and looked up at him, her lips twisting impatiently.  The baby clawed at her massive breast and the loudest sound in the world was the tiny sucking noise as he ate hungrily.

Mr Miller took a seat two down from her without a word.  He opened the first magazine he touched and scanned the middle page, desperate to no longer see nipple everywhere he looked.  He didn't read a single word, his fingers thoughtlessly flipping from page to page every other second. 

"It starts with a C," she said, looking at him again.  He pursed his lips and raised his eyes, then checked his watch again.  The baby started crying, losing the nipple again.  "Aww," the woman said, bouncing the baby on her knee, "She just misses her daddy.  Ain't that right, sweetie?"  The baby shreiked, milk bubbling out from the corner of her mouth.  "He'll be alright though, honey, he'll be just fine."  The woman looked at Mr Miller again, mistaking his utter silence for some hidden desire to have a conversation.  She dropped her voice to just above a whisper.  "He was in an accident, you know.  Someone was out in the middle of the street like a fool."  She huffed, "People should learn to stay out of the road."  The baby continued to bounce up and down, shrieking.  The woman's bare breast rippled like the sea as she turned back to her crossword.

Mr Miller checked his watch again.

"Mr Miller?"  He was on his feet before the second word drifted over the heads of the sick and injured around him.  "Yes that's me, right here," he said, tripping over his shoes.  The triage nurse stood in a doorway across the room.  "If you'll come this way please, your brother is waiting for you."  Mr Miller walked past the woman and her baby.  She lifted the diet coke to her lips again.  "Coincidence," he blurted as he brushed past her.  The woman looked up from her crossword.  "Huh?"  The baby flailed and threw up, spurting slick white milk across the woman's collarbone.  She jerked, dropping the soda.  Diet coke fizzed across the white tile floor as Mr Miller stepped through the double doors and into triage.

Stomp

My feet hammer against the steel under my boots with each bounce of the truck.  The ruts in the dirt road compete with the music beating in my ears and my body doesn't know which rhythm to follow.  I stare at a 45 degree angle at the equipment across from me, willing the hours to pass.  A deep boom in the distance.  The radio squaks.  Where was that?  Not us.  Relief. 

I look at the escape hatch above me.  Many times have I used it.  Never to escape danger, but to fly headfirst into it.  We are children on a lazy saturday afternoon.  The floor is lava, don't touch or you'll lose your foot.  Climb over the furniture laughing, but don't look down. 

When I was young, I'd be condemned to daily naps with my sister in our parent's bed, the bright sun teasing us from the windows one room over as we pleaded into our parents closed ears.  We'd lament the lost rays of the day which were of course better spent excavating velociraptor tree root bones or playing freeze tag through the cut grass. 

Finally, growing frustrated and bored, we'd make up games ourselves, the same ones each time though always somehow new.  With long fluffy pillows over our heads, we'd pull our parent's thick woolen cover up to our chins and imagine the world spread out far below us.  We were Power Rangers, our great robot stepping gingerly around frightened citizens and fragile skyscrapers as we pursued the evil running from us.  We were going to set the world right, fight the abomination of the day, his taunts already fading with strength as his tail settled between his legs. 

Our laughter would exhaust us into sleep in spite of ourselves and as we lay there, fighting our eyelids, my idle hands would gather fluffs of loose wool from the underside of the covers. 

I'd awaken with fistfuls of it and call it "lud" when my mother would inquire as to the strange fluff littering her room. 


I jolt back to reality, the unimproved road not helping in my childhood revery.  In one hand, I hold a tourniquet taken from my cargo pocket.  In the other, a fistful of lud pulled from the velcro of the strap.

Sacrifice

The darkness is the only reason I'm still alive. 

Slowly, quietly, I pick my way through the backyards of my former neighbors, running along hedgelines and keeping to the shadows.  I have shadows of my own, misty clouds of breath the only sign of their presence behind me as they gasp and struggle for air.  I look over my shoulder at them and see their eyes in the darkness, pits of white terror looking to me for a solution, a plan, a bit of mercy.  I urge them forward with my hand, knowing that stopping will lead us to death as easily as the coming of the dawn.  Our passing leaves a trail of dark red in the wet grass as the blood of people we'll never know slides across the shimmering edges of our crude weaponry.  Weaponry which suited yardwork not eight hours before.

A siren splits the silence from three streets over and we stop as one.  The girl behind me whimpers as I raise my hand and kneel in the cold, extending my neck to look around us.  Across the yard, I see a narrow alley between two houses, both of which are dark and silent.  With a quick glance at my wards, I sprint across the yard and herd them between the presumably empty former homes.  As we move, we step over the torn figure of a man.  One of his legs rests against the bottom step of his wooden porch, the dirt below him slowly soaking up the blood pouring from his broken body.  As we pass, I hear choked sobs from a girl behind me.  Her body convulses as she falls to her knees in the dirt, her shriek cut short by the fat hand of another man behind her, saving us before she's able to give us up to those who would have us join the corpse.  

I look to the end of the alley.  A fire burns in the shattered hulk of a car across the street, sending long shadows flickering in all directions.  The siren is loud, echoing off the brick walls on either side of us as red and blue lights finally slide over the greenery behind us.  The car is moving too fast for these streets, the driver running from hell itself.  As I crane my neck for a better view, the car strikes something and we all jump at the sound of rending metal and splintered glass.  The siren shrieks once, twice and then dies.  The silence which drifts down on us huddled in the cold sets us to shivering.  The gunshot immediately afterwards does nothing to warm us. 


When I hear what comes next, I think at first I must be imagining them.  Feet, dozens of them, slapping against the wet pavement.  Some with shoes on but most barefoot and unmistakably in a rush.  We all look to each other with sudden terror, the panic enough to boil our blood.  A scream sets the kneeling girl to shreiking again and the man with the hand over her mouth looks to me for guidance, looking as if he's seconds from shreiking himself.  

"They know we're close", I whisper.

I run back to the girl and grip her by the shoulders, hauling her to her feet.  I yell at the rest of them, "Go!".  They run towards the street and into the flickering shadows of fire.  

I run along behind them, pulling the girl along with me.  She looks over her shoulder as I urge her on, not wanting this moment to be the last with the dead man left behind.  

As we run along the street, we hear the slapping growing louder behind us, and closer, borne of desperation.  I know what's coming and I know how few options we have.  Ahead of us, the storefronts are broken, glass littered across the street.  The city is dark but the sky is lit with the glow of a hundred fires finally allowed free reign.  

I chance a glance behind us and immediately regret my decision.  The mass of people behind us pound the pavement as they run, many of them bleeding freely from wounds which mar their otherwise normal appearance.  They scream and yell as they run, though none in any language familiar to our ears.  Their hands claw at the cold air in front of them and their eyes, bloodshot, are fixed on us.  

"There!", I point along the side of the street.  An open door beckons, chipped red paint flaking off its thick wooden surface.  I stop at the doorway and urge my group through, pushing the sobbing girl to her knees inside as the horde sprints closer.  The man hesitates to help her up and they stumble up the stairway just inside.  I slam the door closed, placing my shoulder against it just as frenzied hands batter against it.  

I put all my strength into the door and still it moves, shoving my feet up against the bottom step. I panic as fingers curl around the wood and scream for my friends to get upstairs.  With one last burst of strength, I shove the door closed, waiting for the satisfying crunch of broken fingers before jumping back and turning to run up the stairs.  The man who held his hand over her mouth waits at the top, beckoning me through a door he holds just barely open.  I hear the door behind me burst open, an ear-splitting wail sending shivers up my spine.  I'm not fast enough.  My feet come out from under me, more fingers wrapped tightly around my ankle and dragging me backwards.  I look up to see the door above closing.  As it slams shut, I feel teeth at my neck.  The shivers up my spine end.  

I wake up.

Madmen

I race through my grandmother's house, my heart beating furiously in my chest.  Tables are upended, lamps and glassware smashed against the ground.  As I round a corner into the living room, papers flutter silently to a stop and our bookcases kiss the ground, their contents strewn across the trampled rug.  The front door is wide open.  As I run out into the night, I hear their laughs echoing through the darkness back at me.  Their bootheels clicking on the pavement as they run their mad victory run. 

I turn back to the house, closing the door against the cold wind and picking my way carefully around the pieces of broken glass littering the floor.  Other family members are slowly coming down the stairs rubbing sleep from their eyes as they take in the wanton destruction.

I begin to take a headcount as I reassure them. 

"What happened?"
"Who did this?" 

They ask, shivering in the warm house.

I walk into the kitchen, throwing the phone to my brother, urging him to call 911 now.  As the back door lock clicks under my fingers, I look through the window at the wing of the house which shoots out at a right angle from the rest of the building.  I can see the window of the room in which my sister and her two young children sleep.  My mind takes two seconds longer than my eyes to register the dull orange glow bouncing off the pane. 

I run.  Leaping around corners and down the hallway, I burst into the room, throwing the door wide.  The three of them sleep in one big bed.  Finger-like tendrils of smoke curl around from behind the bed as if to pull them all someplace dark and deep, somewhere I cannot get them. 

"Hilary."  I whisper, shaking her shoulder three times.  "Hilary, wake up." 

She opens her eyes, her body jolting at the intrusion.

"Don't worry, but there's a fire."  I tell her, already leaning over to scoop her baby into my arms.  With the urgency only a mother can exercise, she wakes up her groggy little girl, their fingers curling together as she leads her out of the darkness, into the light of the hallway.  I follow them, baby in arms. 

Everyone stands by the door, unafraid of the night's chill even with fuzzy slippers and sleep-warmed pajamas their only cover.  I hurry them outside, passing the baby into the arms of my blood before doubling back into the house. 

Under the bed, two orange eyes spark at me, hissing at my intervention.  Every electrical appliance this side of the house piled in the center of the room and plugged into a single cord, running directly under the bed and minutes away from overload.  I yank the cord and look up, blue and red lights already filling the darkness outside.


I wake up.

Light

She's sitting on a bench by an open window, her blue cotton dress fallen around her on the smooth red velvet.  Her eyes are downcast, barely visible under the thick locks of auburn hair blowing in the gentle breeze, framing her pale face.  Down one soft cheek, a single streak of different colored skin glistens wetly in the fading light. 

I'm standing directly in front of her, but she can't see me.  I don't exist in the room by any sense she would normally be aware of.  I can feel her grief, a leaden weight in the otherwise cheerful room.  I step closer and she moves, lifting her head very slightly, almost imperceptibly so.  I take another step, slow and deliberate.  Her hands are clasped lightly across her lap, resting on the fabric of her dress.  I reach out slowly, my fingertips brushing over the skin of her hand.  She bristles and sits back as if brushed by a live wire.  Her eyes raise towards me, unseeing.

A fresh tear slips onto the carpet below, splashing minutely against her flats.  I know she can't see me, can't sense me other than the jolt running from my fingertip into her arm.  Her eyes raise higher, seeing everything past me at the level of my chest until finally, her eyes meet mine.  I slip my fingers through hers, clasping her hand tightly.  Her face lights, the corners of her mouth lifting as if for the first time as she sees me without seeing me.  Fresh tears fall, a different sort.



I wake up, cold.

Terror

Loud. Loud.
Why is everything so LOUD?

White light, but something is blocking it. A shadow is moving closer to me, covering me, a huge sillouette. Hands. Huge, with long, thick fingers.

I cover my ears, closing my eyes, but I still see the shadow moving closer, towering over me. The noise is incredible. So loud I can't think. Can't move. Can't feel anything but terror and the need to GETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAY


Paralyzed, I can't move, I see a face now. Terrible, huge, with black eyes. It's talking to me, but it has no mouth. No words, but I can hear it in my brain. Stop it please. STOP IT!

I'm frozen with fear, but shivering, unable to move, to GETAWAY.

The words are louder, thundering in my ears, yelling at me. Incomprehensible.
STOP!


I wake up screaming. I jump out of bed, unaware I'm awake until I'm already out of the room, screaming, running to warmth, safety, familiarity. I find my sister or my mother, burying my face in their shirt and holding them tight. It takes whole minutes to convince me it was all a dream.

Just a dream.




This is my failed attempt at trying to put onto paper the content of recurring night terrors I had as a child. There are no words for the pure animal fear of those dreams.

Lost!

I'm in Afghanistan, but it's a different sort of Afghanistan than the one I fell asleep in.

The dust is gone, replaced with hard packed dirt and even spots of green grass here and there. I can hear the voices of the men in my platoon who in reality sit twenty feet away from my cot, talking and playing cards. I'm alone with these voices, looking around and over my shoulders to see where they are. I'm confused. They sound so close but I cannot find them.

Trees close in around me and I'm lost, still desperately searching for the source of these all-too familiar voices. I stumble onto the entrance to a dark tunnel, overgrown with vines and green things. I step through into the shadow, following the voices which now echo around me. After only a few steps over the rough ground of the tunnel, I find myself in a long hallway. Brown stone faces me on either side and though I see no sconces along the length of the walls, candlelight scares my shadow into dancing fits as I walk onward.

I turn a corner, knowing now that I am hopelessly lost. I turn back around, wanting back out of the hallway but nothing meets my gaze but unending masonry. I turn again and the scene has changed again. I'm in a low ceiling'd room with display cases faced with dirty glass. Along the walls, tour guides in crisp blue uniforms point out directions to groups of people wandering through the building. A window, etched with iron, catches my attention. Outside, the sun is bright and green grass grows in a courtyard. A girl with long brown hair sits on a stone bench, book in hand.

I feel that I cannot ask anyone where I am or how to get back to my men but I feel that I'll get closer if I can just get outside. I run out of the room and down a steep staircase. I burst our into the courtyard breathless.

There is no courtyard. A dirt path beaten into the grass slithers along in front of me and trees fan out to each side. In front of me, across the path, is a sloping grassy hill and in the distance, I see rocky mountains and vast sandy plains. A colorful mosque sits by itself, shimmering prettily in the afternoon heat.

I turn back to the building, panic rising further as I realize just how far lost I've gotten myself in my wanderings. The voices rise around me again and I open the door, shuffling back into the building. The room has changed again. The ceiling is low and dozens of arches are spaced throughout. I cannot see the far walls facing the door.

I sink to my knees, despair filling my mind. Lost!

Suddenly, I realize that this could all be a dream. Yes, just a dream.

I try to wake myself up, squeezing my eyes together. The voices grow louder. So close.


I tear at my arm, pinching and ripping at the skin, yelling at myself to wake up. Wake up!

My fingers go to my eyes, ripping at the scarf around my neck and pulling it from over my eyes, allowing the sun to burst through my eyelids, doing what pain could not.

I wake up.

Rescue

The building was leaned at an odd angle, it's interior ruined and shadowed, lit only by a scant few candles placed strategically away from the covered windows. People huddled in corners, covered in blankets in twos and threes, sharing their warmth and talking in hushed tones, their eyes scanning the doors and windows for movement. I was standing near the main door, holding a scratched and dirty shotgun in my hands.

The girl stood nearby, her dark hair covering her pretty face. She looked at me as I checked my safety one last time and I glanced back, summoning a half-smile before opening the door and disappearing into the darkness.

I moved quickly, scanning every window, every alley, for the slightest movement. I could hear the continuous symphony of gunshots in the distance. Every now and again, a scream would punctuate the terrible white noise of the city, cut short by some unknown horror.

The shotgun was heavy in my hands as I moved from door to door, examining each house, every cupboard and cabinet for any supplies that might prove useful. I could feel other people around me, watching me from the shadows, too afraid to make a noise. Everyone was afraid of everyone, always aware of the new world, where people were as likely to kill you as look at you, or worse.

An hour or so passed and I hefted the heavy pack filled with supplies on my shoulders. I turned the corner towards my building, or rather, the building I was squatting in with a half a dozen other strangers. My mind filled with dread at the sight before me. Flames leaped from the windows and as I watched, the building collapsed, slowly at first, then picking up speed as people ran in all directions, their hands over their heads. Bodies lay in the rubble everywhere, some with their scant possessions still being pried from their hands by the newest breed of desperate opportunists.

As I watched, I saw the girl disappearing down a dark alley on the other side of the now-collapsed building. She wasn't alone.

Three men jostled her, pushed her roughly, forcing her to move further away. All of them were armed, all of them dirty, with horrible smiles plastered over their unshaven faces. My legs moved before my brain had fully comprehended what was happening. I jumped over the broken bricks and jagged steel framework littered across the street, pursuing the trio, my finger already flipping the weapon's safety.

As I quietly ran up behind them, they turned, bringing their weapons to bear. I gave them no chance. As quickly as my hands could move, I slammed the shots into their chests, watching them fall as the girl looked on in horror, her mouth moving in a silent scream. Before their bodies had fully settled against the cold ground, my fingers curled through hers and we ran between the darkened buildings, the smell of gunpowder still fresh in my nose.

I wake up.

Emergency

The flashing red strobes lit the scene, casting shadows over the twisted wreck of steel and glass smoking on the side of the road. Rain spattered on the concrete, further amplifying the brightness of the emergency lights, and the direness of the situation. The woman was on her back in the road, lying exactly across the yellow divider lines of the highway. Her breathing was shallow, her pulse weak. She was alive, awake, but only just barely. She blinked her eyes to keep the water from her eyes, entirely oblivious to the warm blood pooling underneath her broken body. She tried desperately to move her head to the side, wanting to see the car she had been thrown from only moments before. She looked past the men rushing towards her, stretcher between them, rain dripping from their tense faces, and tuned her ears for the horrible sound she so desperately wanted to hear.

The men reached her, their hands suddenly on her, stripping her of her blouse and breathing down on her, replacing the horridness of the situation with something much darker, still all too familiar. She cried out in fear more than pain, adrenaline numbing her to the injuries of her body. Blue gloved hands held her down, strapped her to a long board, immobilizing her, preventing her from seeing the wreck even in her peripheral vision. Her voice was ragged, her moans cut short by the oxygen mask placed over her face, only serving to heighten her feeling of helplessness.

A face hovered over hers, a voice muffled and incomprehensible and loud, so loud, bursting her ears and stripping her mind of any focused thought. She cried out again and again, her words as incomprehensible to them as theirs were to her. Firemen worked frantically around the wreck as she was wheeled past, her neck still working against the cervical collar fixed around it. She couldn't see the bright yellow sticker, still attached to the splintered glass of the back window, announcing the presence of a child. She couldn't see the toys scattered all along the road, just as she had been, drenched and broken and of no more use. But she finally heard what she'd been pleading for, just before the doors of the ambulance shut, closing her off from the old world.

Cries other than her own.
Small, weak, but decidedly alive.


As the medication flooded her body, she collapsed against the stretcher and did not wake up for a long time.

Stop that

I almost put my hand on your thigh as we drove into the night.
It's not that I'm still in love.




It's just hard to break muscle memory.

District 9

A cold snow falls, resting on the trees above and letting silence reign over the Capitol. I watch the great stone monuments shrouded in white, my breath blowing visibly in front of my face, my nose red from the chill. We walk together, our feet crunching in the covered leaves, twin trails criss-crossing the moon-lit avenue. The wind blows, shaking the loose snow from the trees and adding more to the flakes blowing all around us. Subconsciously, I pull you closer, our fingers warm together, our bodies brushing closely together. A park bench stands invitingly under a canopy of reflected light. We move towards it, our legs needing a short rest. I lean down, hesitant to leave your side for even a moment, and brush away the fallen snow from the cold wood, motioning you to take a seat. It's the first time I've noticed the cold as I sit beside you, eager to press against your body once more.

People wander around us, some in close pairs, others alone, hands in pockets, kicking the snow with each step. The streetlights create pools of light along the avenues, attracting small groups of travelers, all waiting to be bathed in the light of arriving cabs. The streets are crowded for such a cold night, the passing cars throwing waves of icy slush onto the glistening sidewalks. Close by, a girl loses her balance and her feet slip out from under her. The grip on her waist tightens immediately and she's pulled to safety by the man beside her, their laughter piercing he still air. The walk away, slower now, closer together, their voices fading away.

I shift beside you, my arm pulling you tighter to me. Your hair falls from your scarf onto my shoulder, dusted with snow.

Mix-up

The other night I dreamed better, though I can't remember what about. When I woke up, I was still dreaming, as ridiculous as it sounds. It was as if I woke up and remembered the dream that I'd just left, only I was still dreaming it. I was controlling it as I've learned to do, but with the added quality of knowing that all I had to do was open my eyes and it would disappear.

I could hear the fan in my room blowing and feel the sheets against my skin, but I was still experiencing the dream itself as if I had never left it. The actual physical stimuli just sort of melded into the dream until I realized that I was no longer dreaming in the usual sense. I was confused for a moment, unbelieving of what was going on, but then I turned my attention to the dream and found that I could still control it exactly as I had. It was no daydream, as you might think. It was vivid and very visual, as if I was looking at it... as any dream looks.

After a minute or two, I decided to open my eyes because I could not believe that I was actually awake. Sure enough, I opened my eyes and almost immediately forgot the world I had just left. The fan was still blowing rhythmically and I could feel the sheets against my skin.

Running

I've had insomnia lately.

I've been running, but can't seem to tire myself out. Even when I do, I end up too tired to sleep, so I run some more, or I lay in bed and check the same websites over and over again, waiting for the sunrise. More people need to stay awake late, to keep me and the other night people company.

I had a truly awful dream last night. Awful enough that I don't really even want to put down into words it's vividness. Suffice it to say that I woke up at four in the morning and laid there for several minutes just collecting myself from the raw shock. I had to get up and walk around, pour myself a glass of tea, just in order to try to place it in the back of my mind. I did not succeed at this.

Though if I had, would it only have made it worse? Why was it in the back of my mind to begin with? It's structure had to be there in order to be so descriptively constructed in my sleep, so where did it come from?

I wrote it out and immediately felt sick.

Timed Trial

I was in some sort of contest. A trial by fire wherein I passed through dozens of rooms. Some of the rooms were the size of a football field, others the size of a small apartment. Each was of a different type, but they were all terrifying in one way or another. I cannot remember the first ones I passed through, just that there was lots of running. Some of the rooms were mentally challenging, in which I would have to figure my way around a trap or a puzzle of some kind before being allowed entrance to the next. Others were physically demanding, requiring the completion of an obstacle course or some other feat of strength.

At any moment, I knew the price of failure was death, so I was pushed on by a desperation borne of terror. None of the rooms had ceilings that I can remember, only blackness, and a feeling of being watched never left me. Some of the rooms had dark figures walking or limping around me, but they never interrupted my course or tried to communicate in any way. On entering each room, rules imposed themselves on me and I was made to know exactly what could and could not be done over the course of traveling through that particular room.

The first room that I can remember was the size of a small warehouse, with a main avenue running down the middle of it and heavy machinery lining each side. A door beckoned me on the other side. The machinery was new and shiny, but made the most awful noise. Bent over consoles next to each machine was a figure in a lab coat busily working. I walked down the avenue, trying to reach the far side of this room and trying not to make eye contact with anyone. A rule had imposed itself on me, do not talk to anyone.

In the center of the room, right in the middle of this main avenue was a contraption surrounded by floating orbs and spheres. The spheres were all multi-colored, the first color I'd seen in the mostly black and grey worlds of the rooms. The spheres were also moving terrifically fast, orbiting the contraption and blocking off any movement to the far side of it. As I walked towards it, time itself seemed to slow down and the spheres slowed their pace. My legs grew heavy and I found it hard to move at all. It was as if everything around me was stuck in the thickest honey. I realized that this would allow me to pass through the contraption to the other side, but it would take all my strength to move and at any moment, the laws governing the room could change and I could be caught in the middle of the swirling machinery. The perfectly round spheres colored in reds and blues and yellows gave the feeling of children's toys, but my mind saw them as sharp and dangerous and I was not eager to pass so closely to them.

I was suddenly aware that I'd been carrying a brown paper bag in my right hand. It had something inside of it, something resembling a book of some kind. As I made up my mind to pass through the contraption, I first threw the paper bag through and then guided my body through, avoiding the balls as I could. Just as my ankle came through after me and I regained my balance, time snapped back and the contraption grew back into a whirling death trap.

I walked towards the silvery metal door, passing more machinery and technicians in lab coats. As I raised my hand to grip the door handle and open it, one of the technicians told me not to in whispers. Her face was mostly hidden by the hood of her lab coat, but I could see that she was blonde and very beautiful. She told me that entrance to the other side would be decided momentarily. I was not to touch the door.

I ignored her and gripped the door handle.

Immediately I was filled with regret and terror as the atmosphere changed and everything became black. The room behind me disappeared in the darkness, leaving only the silvery metal door in front of me. After several minutes, the door opened and I was greeted with another woman, this one dressed as a receptionist.

She told me to follow her inside the next room and she looked terrified as well, as if she knew something bad was about to happen to me for breaking a rule of the trial. I followed her into what looked like a department store. Everything looked normal, though the lights seemed too bright. I followed her to a waiting man who stood with his arms crossed. He seemed to be at least three feet taller than me, and dressed in a dark suit. He guided me over to a wall of clothing and told me to pick all new clothes to wear.

Nothing fit me.


Alarm clock.

Memoria

As anyone who knows me can tell, my memory is horrible, not just short term, but long term too. I can't remember right now what I did today. If you ask me about a conversation I had with you a week ago, chances are I will have no recollection of it.

As a result, the state of my memories is a random assortment of visual flashes, with a few spoken words here and there. Certain smells and certain images fire memories every now and then, but for the most part, it's very hard for me to remember vivid events from my childhood and even today. From the ages of 9 to 13 or so, I have absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Everyone I know has experienced the strange sensation of driving to a destination and not having any recollection of ever having driven there. I spend four or five hours a day driving and so, more than five hours of my day, everyday, are completely lost to me. I spend a good part of my life in exactly that state of mind. Half the time, I can't even tell you what I was thinking about while I was mentally dead to the world. There are times that I drive across town, have a conversation with someone and drive back and suddenly 'come to' and realize I can't even remember where I just was. It's unsettling to not be able to remember where you were five minutes ago.


I keep thinking that this memory disorder, and I know that's what it is, is somehow connected to my frequently occurring night terrors, but I can't for the life of me figure out how.

Waves

I was staying at a hotel on the coast with my brother, his wife and my girlfriend. The hotel's entrance to the beach opened on a long corridor of sand with tall beach grass on either side. At the end of this corridor, right where the beach starts, a tall dark wall of rock stretched as far as the eye could see into the sky. This wall went along the edge of the beach for about 100 feet before turning at a right angle on both sides and running straight out into the ocean. The only entrance or exit to this enclosure was through a very small door which the hotel corridor led to.

We all went to the beach for the day and I started to dig a hole in the sand. We were all laughing and talking and the beach enclosure was filled with other people, all enjoying the day. After a while though, the sky grew dark and the waves increased in strength. Within just a few minutes, the tide had come up and the waves were pushing us back towards the enclosure wall. People began to panic and get as close to the wall as possible, but it seemed like most of them were not aware of the door. Maybe too panicked to think clearly.

We ran back to the wall with everyone, but we had been in the middle of the enclosure, so the door was directly in front of us. The waves were incredibly high, at least 100 feet, and they were smashing down not far from where we were. People were crying and clutching each other, scrambling at the wall in a desperate attempt to climb it.

I knew that not everyone would get out of there, so I stayed at the door and started yelling over the noise at the people to the left of the door. I screamed at them to come with me, waving them towards the door and shouting that they needed to get out as quickly as possible. A few people looked at me, horror plastered on their faces and started to head towards the door. Most of them were too panicked to think.

I shouted over to my brother to do the same with the people on the right side of the door. We started ushering people towards the door together. The more people who listened and stopped panicking, the easier it was until only a few people were left, most of them clustered at the far ends of the wall. The waves had increased in strength and proximity until now they were staying put, feet from us. We were all drenched and tired. My girlfriend and my brother's wife were no where to be seen; they'd been the first couple that we'd pushed through the doors.

All at once, the tide drew away from us and the sky began to lighten.



Everything faded away and now I was at my apartment with my girlfriend. Instead of the apartments opening onto the main hallway with closed doors, now there were glass storefronts. The apartment next to ours had been renovated into an open bar, with a counter facing right out into the hallway. As I walked by, the man who lived there was polishing a mug with a towel over his shoulder. He smiled as I passed.

Our apartment door was glass, with big store windows on either side. The rest of the apartment was the same as in reality, but the first room was now a store, with counters and tables piled high with containers of cookies, candies and cakes. We'd lived there for a few months already and had already looked around at everything. We had assumed the food was all fake, just there for show until we bought enough real food to open the shop.

As I walked in the door, I saw the shop room and decided to go in a have a look, seeing as I hadn't been inside it since we'd moved in. There was a lot of color, just as you'd imagine a candy store, and a pie counter was near the door. I moved over to it and picked up a fake cookie. As I picked it up, I noticed crumbs falling from it and took a bite. It was real, and very tasty.

Excited, I ate the whole thing and then called my girlfriend to come and look. She screamed out in joy and we both scanned the pie counter, my eyes searching for a chocolate cheesecake.

Looking over at the sour candies, I almost died, saying, "This is just like winning a million dollars!"


With cookie crumbs in the corners of my mouth, a chocolate cheesecake in my hand, I said to my girlfriend, "Remember though, everything in moderation."

I wake up, extremely disappointed and hungry.