BrigitsFlame, MiniContest - July 2009
July 30, 1994
Saturday
I dreamed that dream again. The one where the world is ending.
Or rather-it’s not ending for me, at least. I can just see it in the sky. A sky of endless twilight, where an endless planet is suspended. The horizon I’m standing on stretches endlessly, too, a desert of fine sand cool to the touch, like the sand underneath the lifeguard station at the beach is. There is a dead tree in the distance, black and crippled and insignificant-looking. Dust falls from the sky although there are no clouds, covering me in a slight ash as if I’m an almost-antique no one cares about. Wind whips against my goose-bumped skin, but I don’t hear it. I don’t hear anything.
My world is muted.
The alien planet is huge, so huge I can only see a fourth of it from where I am. A great arc of raging blues cutting across the dying sky and bleak landscape. My eyes aren’t fixated on the planet or its vastness, however. Instead, I find myself unable to look away from what’s plunging into its stormy seas: Earth. The planet Earth, plunging into another planet’s oceans.
What a fantastical way for the world to end. Artistic, even.
I know there are still people on Earth. I know there are people, screaming and crying in a symphony of terror. But I can’t hear them. I can’t hear anything. I just know.
So I stand on my horizon, watching. Watching and waiting for the earth to be drowned whole-but it never happens. It’s plunging, but is never fully engulfed. Just stays mid-plunge. And the wind keeps blowing and the dust keeps falling, and I can’t hear the wind or the screams but I wait and watch, watch and wait.
It’s strange, because normally when I dream it’s all dulled colors and extremely vivid sound. I’ll hear the echoes of what had been happening as I’m waking up, though I couldn’t tell you red from brown in the dream. Sometimes I’ll hear Nathan’s voice. But for this dream…it’s completely opposite, basically. Eerie, and more so than usual. Extremely vivid colors, alive and breathing, an imagined masterpiece worthy of wide eyes and craning necks-but no sound except for the whispers of my mind.
This dream has come every once and a while, ever since last February. These past two months, it has gotten more frequent. This week alone, I’ve already dreamt it three times.
When I wake up, I feel hollow. A little dead inside.
I lay in my bed for a little while, staring blankly at the ceiling fan, before getting up to write this.
-
Entry 1
Day: 2-3?
Confused. I’m so confused! I don’t understand what’s going on!
It’s my dream world. The one with Earth falling into the ocean? I’m there. I’m there! I’ve told myself I have to be dreaming again, everything looks the way it does in my dream-but-but I’m not sure if that’s true anymore. I’ve been here for at least a day or two, and I’m not watching or waiting. I’m moving.
I mean, I did watch and wait at first. It began like the dream begins every time. But then, I started to get restless. Instead of waking up before anything happened, I moved. I took a step forward, and since the ground didn’t explode under my feet, I took a couple more. Soon, I was walking without a second thought-towards the barren tree in the distance. The whole time I walked, nothing changed; the world stayed in its perpetual end, the wind kept blowing and the dust kept falling. The sky stayed twilight. I don’t know how long I walked.
Eventually, I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere. The tree stayed the same distance away it had been when I started. But I knew I’d been walking! For the first time since the dream began-or not-dream, I don’t know anymore, I don’t know!-I felt my heart flutter with fear. And then this appeared at my feet, quite suddenly and out of nowhere. My dream diary, that is. I flipped through it, but the only entry I can read is the one before this one. The one from last night. At least, I think it’s from last night.
It may be from several nights ago.
…I won’t think about that. I just looked up. The tree seems a little closer.
And-
I just realized I can hear the wind. It’s howling quietly past my ears.
-
Entry 6
Day: 8? Unknown.
Maybe I should feel guilty for stopping so many times, but you can only walk for so long without anything to do. I stop to write because I get bored. Not because I’m tired. I don’t get tired, or hungry-it has to have been at least a few more days by now, though I can’t tell. I don’t get cold, either, which is weird. The wind is constant and cold, and I always have goosebumps, but I never shiver.
Sometimes I stop to watch the sky again. But I’m not waiting anymore. And I don’t know if people are screaming, even though I can hear. Earlier I hummed an old hymn I can’t remember the name of, or the words to, but stopped nearly immediately because I felt too small. I’ve yet to actually open my mouth to let my voice escape, and I don’t plan to. It feels…wrong.
The tree seems to have gotten closer again.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe.
Maybe maybe maybe.
-
Entry 11
Day: Still unkown
I saw someone. I swear to God I saw someone.
It was a flickering silhouette, only about a half a mile away from me. At first, I practically tripped over myself-I didn’t think it was possible! I just assumed I was the only living thing here! But I blinked, and it was still there. Before I knew what I was doing, I had picked up my pace to a jog, then a full-out sprint, stumbling through sand, wind, and dust after the damn shadow. After a damn shadow! I must have been screaming after it, because my throat feels raw. It probably didn’t take that long before I actually did trip, even though it felt like centuries. I found myself sprawled headfirst into grainy, bland-tasting sand. By the time I looked up, chest heaving, whatever it had been was gone. It was then I noticed I was crying. I still am. A little bit.
I haven’t run that long or hard after something since they drove away with Nathan’s casket to place him amongst the hills and piles of generations of soldiers who’d served their country well.
WHAT IS GOING ON GET ME OUT OF HERE GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT-
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Entry 23
Day: Unknown
Today (ha, today?!) I stubbed my toe.
Stubbing my toe is important! This isn’t some mundane entry because I’ve finally gone insane. You see, this is all desert, sand. Fine sand, no rocks-except for the one I stubbed my toe on today. After digging it out of the sand, I instantly recognized it, too. Smooth, black, still a perfect fit in my palm after all these years, and polished naturally by the elements to the point it dully shines: my old skipping stone. When I was young, there was a creek that ran through the woods near my house…I’d always go out there to skip my rock, and I’d always go wade through to get back my rock each time after I’d skipped it. I’d been determined not to lose it.
I never did, either, until I bought my first apartment. Got lost in the move.
For a while, I just fingered the rock and watched the sky. Then I turned my gaze downwards as I began walking again and…began finding more things in the sand. I found one of my cousin’s old paper dress-up dolls she always played with-the one I stole one evening because she wouldn’t play with me. It was frayed fuzzy, and the colors whitewashed. I found Maxie’s collar-old son-of-a-bitch passed away when I was in my sophomore year of college, best dog I ever had. Only dog. It was rusted around the buckle edges, the leather cracked with age. I found the set of keys for my first car; the creased-and-wrinkled Woody Allen poster Grandad gave me when I was ten; my favorite coffee mug that I’d accidentally cracked a couple weeks ago; the porno magazine I stole from Mikey in the eleventh grade because I was curious, though I wouldn’t have admitted it over my dead teenage body; one of Nathan’s shirts, the worn, plaid button-down that always had his scent…
All of the wasted treasures brought a twitch of a smile to my lips. I’ve kept my rock, but moved on without anything else.
Once they started dwindling in number, I looked up from the sand the tree seemed closer than ever.
-
Entry 28
Day: Still unknown
I’m tired.
-
Entry 33
Day: Unkno
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS I HATE THIS STUPID YOU’RE A BASTARD PLEASE GET ME WHAT THE HELL YOU FUCK I HATE YOU I HATE YOU WHAT IS THIS HOW FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK YOU OH GOD GET ME OUT I WANT OUT I HATE YOU FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD GOD PLEASE PLEASE WHAT THE HELL I’M SCARED HELP OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT STUPID SHIT I HATE THIS GOD HELP ME MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY HELP ME MOMMY--
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Entry 34
So. I finally arrived at the tree.
...There’s nothing there.
NOTHING.
I...don’t know what I was expecting, but not nothing. I stood in front of it for while, unsure-I noticed it looked like one of the apple trees near Nathan’s house, the ones that reminded me of Grandad’s grove…it even had these little withered things on its branches that looked like they might’ve been apples at some point.
But nothing happened-I didn’t see anyone, or see anything out of the ordinary from this dreary place. I guess I was expecting to have overcome something by making it this far, trekking across this godforsaken universe to this godforsaken, dead tree. But the wind continued to blow and the dust continued to fall and nothing happened. The view of the world ending was more ghastly-sickening and less eerily-beautiful through dead branches with withered pits.
I lost it.
First I kicked the tree, over and over again until my bare feet were bruised and bloody. Then I tried to break the branches, but they only quivered. I spat, and for the first time I spoke as I screamed and cursed aloud. I futilely tried to write in here, and instead just ended up throwing this diary at the tree. I sobbed and heaved for awhile.
Then I collapsed.
For the first moment since arriving here, I just collapsed. I went half-back to how I normally was in this world, in the beginning: watching and waiting in an indifferent manner. Dust blew in my mouth and sand got in my eyes, but I just lay there, staring deadly at the tree. I must have been a sight.
Of course, just as before, I eventually grew restless with that.
Now I sit here, unable to walk-apparently though I can’t get hungry of physically tired or cold here, I can still get hurt and feel pain-and have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I haven’t felt this lost in…a very long time. I’d gotten used to the dull, callous face I tend to show to the world, so I wouldn’t get hurt anymore. The overwhelming despair I felt at finding the tree and yet finding nothing was a new yet familiar feeling for me. It made me eventually move again, and did not permit me to fall back into the comfort of indifference again. I can’t decide whether or not I’m grateful for this. I feel hesitant.
The view of the world ending through dead branches with withered pits now appears less ghastly-sickening, less eerily-beautiful, and more…wrenching. Unfair, yet necessary for this universe to make sense.
I wonder if people are screaming.
I wonder how far I’ve come. It feels like I’ve been here for years, as if it’s been centuries since I moved from watching and waiting. How many miles have I walked? How
I…
God. I…I just realized.
I’ve never looked backwards. Not once.
I’ve never looked back.
I don’t want to. I’m scared, and don’t want to. But…I want know! I must know!
I’ve just looked up, through the branches once more. The oceans now seem to be calmly lapping up Earth-is it plunging anymore? Has it finally resumed its descent, although more gently than I imagined? I’m not sure.
I’m tired of being tired. Of being scared.
I’m
-
September 5, 1994
Monday
Strange.
Mikey’s sitting in a chair pulled nearly on top of my hospital bed. He looks exhausted, and he should be-the idiot stayed here with me nearly non-stop for the past month, the nurses said. His sleeping face is making me smile.
But that’s not what strange. Mikey brought in a whole bunch of my stuff from home, hoping the familiar surrounding would help me wake up. He was always the more superstitious, gullible one out of the two of us, probably read something on the internet. Anyway, he brought in this diary, so I figured I could go on and write an entry, since I’ve fallen behind nearly a month. And here’s what strange-I was flipping through the pages, and though the last one is from July 30-which is only logical, since that’s the day I got hit by the bus-I feel…like there should be more. Like my eyes are slipping over words that are written there but are invisible. Smells, too-the diary-of wind and dust.
It’s strange.
But yeah-what a strange dream to have the night before your life comes to a sudden halt for an undetermined amount of time. A coma! I can’t believe it! The doctors said they weren’t sure when I’d wake up, it’d been a serious head trauma on top of my other injuries (punctured lung, five broken ribs, broken left tibia, broken hip, all around bloody and beaten up-I was a mess!). I’m sure I gave my parents a right scare, and Mikey is worse for wear too; first Nathan, and now me. Life’s not fair to him, poor guy. And he’s such a good guy.
I didn’t join you this time, Nathan. Sorry. I will eventually, but not...now.
Mikey was here when I woke up. Mom was getting coffee. Said I scared the shit out of him-I suddenly gasped, as if coming up out of water from a deep dive, and…sobbing. They said I woke up sobbing, dry-heaving. The nurses had to give me sedatives in order to calm me down. I barely remember, since the drugs made everything hazy, but it was supposedly a miracle. That I just up and woke like that.
I do remember something, though-when I woke up, I felt refreshed. A little more alive than usual. Huh.
...During the coma, I wonder if I dreamed?
-
Fin.