With nightmares like these, who needs dreams
I sleep.
Color-wheel kaleidoscope waterfalls. Birds circle overhead the perfectly coordinated triads and tetrads, changing as I gaze at them. I wear a tan suit and pearls, my hair is blonde, light, free. I move in fast, choppy motions, like old film stock skipping frames. I look over the bridge; I can fly! I take my heels off, climb over, and dive easily into the blinding rushing whirling color. It welcomes me, spinning. I fall - and fall - and fall -
(Goodbye! says a bird. It’s an albatross.)
I wake.
I sleep.
“It’s all lies,” I tell myself in the mirror. I clutch the large gold frame that holds together the cracked silvered glass, my fingers digging into it like so much golden clay. “All you dream is lies. Remember this.”
Then it changes. I walk a green and flaxen field. A white dress, tiny trees dotting the flat landscape. There is nobody, and I run my fingers through the vegetation. (Is it wheat? Is it flax? Is it grass? It changes as I gaze at it. The sunlight is too bright.) There is nobody, I am alone with the beautiful plants; the beautiful wheat stalks have been cut out of yellow construction paper by some divine hand with divine safety scissors.
Someone stalks me. There is nobody, but there is someone - a dark shape, and a flash of steel, and my red blood lies, drips, falls - falls - through the soft sheaves.
I wake.
I sleep.
I look at myself and frown. “Don’t trust it,” I say. “Don’t think it’s true. It’s all lies it is, lies trying to be truths.” I clutch my hat and survey the beachscape. I sit in a chair next to myself, both chairs white and immaculate. There is nothing around, just twice myself. We smile at each other and hold hands.
It changes again. There is a city to the East of nowhere, a city of night and black stone. Hematite. Marcasite. Darker than diamonds. Everything is precious stone, and everything is base stone, and everything is below me and above me as I run, trenched and well-heeled and wet, through slippery streets wide as night. I turn to the lion-flanked steps of a building; but as I reach them they stretch up, deform, loop, bulge, ooze. I can’t climb them.
I run on, try a doorway. It becomes a mouth, then a wall, then a black magnet that repels me. I run faster, try other steps, try other doorways, but everything becomes blacker. It changes as I gaze at it. There is no light. The darkness is a stone that melts down in a cold wet forge, becomes nothing, swallows me up. I fall - and fall - and fall -
I wake.
I sleep.
My own image gazing fondly at me from a red armchair in a smoky library, eating Turkish Delight.
“It’s all lies,” my twinkling mirror image tells me. “The fractals of your imagination have created a plant that shadows reality with its tendrils. It lies and schemes in league with the overarching antitruth. Your mind fights against itself with increasing strength. Don’t worry - you’ll learn to tell the difference soon.”
(Choose one of us, choose one of us, the books on the shelves say.)
I wake.
I sleep.
Color-wheel kaleidoscope waterfalls. Birds circle overhead the perfectly coordinated triads and tetrads, changing as I gaze at them. I wear a tan suit and pearls, my hair is blonde, light, free. I move in fast, choppy motions, like old film stock skipping frames. I look over the bridge; I can fly! I take my heels off, climb over, and dive easily into the blinding rushing whirling color. It welcomes me, spinning. I fall - and fall - and fall -
(Goodbye! says a bird. It’s an albatross.)
I wake.
I sleep.
“It’s all lies,” I tell myself in the mirror. I clutch the large gold frame that holds together the cracked silvered glass, my fingers digging into it like so much golden clay. “All you dream is lies. Remember this.”
Then it changes. I walk a green and flaxen field. A white dress, tiny trees dotting the flat landscape. There is nobody, and I run my fingers through the vegetation. (Is it wheat? Is it flax? Is it grass? It changes as I gaze at it. The sunlight is too bright.) There is nobody, I am alone with the beautiful plants; the beautiful wheat stalks have been cut out of yellow construction paper by some divine hand with divine safety scissors.
Someone stalks me. There is nobody, but there is someone - a dark shape, and a flash of steel, and my red blood lies, drips, falls - falls - through the soft sheaves.
I wake.
I sleep.
I look at myself and frown. “Don’t trust it,” I say. “Don’t think it’s true. It’s all lies it is, lies trying to be truths.” I clutch my hat and survey the beachscape. I sit in a chair next to myself, both chairs white and immaculate. There is nothing around, just twice myself. We smile at each other and hold hands.
It changes again. There is a city to the East of nowhere, a city of night and black stone. Hematite. Marcasite. Darker than diamonds. Everything is precious stone, and everything is base stone, and everything is below me and above me as I run, trenched and well-heeled and wet, through slippery streets wide as night. I turn to the lion-flanked steps of a building; but as I reach them they stretch up, deform, loop, bulge, ooze. I can’t climb them.
I run on, try a doorway. It becomes a mouth, then a wall, then a black magnet that repels me. I run faster, try other steps, try other doorways, but everything becomes blacker. It changes as I gaze at it. There is no light. The darkness is a stone that melts down in a cold wet forge, becomes nothing, swallows me up. I fall - and fall - and fall -
I wake.
I sleep.
My own image gazing fondly at me from a red armchair in a smoky library, eating Turkish Delight.
“It’s all lies,” my twinkling mirror image tells me. “The fractals of your imagination have created a plant that shadows reality with its tendrils. It lies and schemes in league with the overarching antitruth. Your mind fights against itself with increasing strength. Don’t worry - you’ll learn to tell the difference soon.”
(Choose one of us, choose one of us, the books on the shelves say.)
I wake.
I sleep.