DREAM
The first thing he saw was fire. It whispered at his arms, flickered underneath his feet, curled up around his neck, but it did not hurt. It was merely hot, uncomfortably so, heating him but not burning him. He tried to put out the fire by patting himself down, but to no avail; the flames stayed stronger than ever. He staggered away, sweat pouring down his face in rivulets, stinging his eyes and dribbling into his open month. As he stepped back, he noted that he was in front of a large house, already partially wrecked from the fire that incinerated its insides. Above him, storm clouds gathered. Around him were people, apparently watching the world burn as opposed to doing anything to stop it.
None of them looked at him.
“Hey,” he said. Then louder, “Hey!”
No one turned.
“C-can anyone help me?”
He coughed on the smoke and moved in front of the crowd. It wasn’t as if they were abnormally unobservant; they were moving amongst themselves, talking, pointing, coughing. He waved his hands over his head fretfully. “I’m right here. I’m right here!”
Something akin to fear swallowed him, but more than that, a surprising surge of anger ran through his veins heating him up more than the fire ever could, and he advanced on one of the onlookers.
“Can’t you see me?” No response. He took a deep breath, then roared, “Look at me!”
A voice behind him. “I see you.”
He nearly wept with relief as he turned around to see a woman many years his senior, with long black hair and an exquisite, incredibly lonely looking face. He could only stare dumbly as she put her hand on his face. It was cold, colder than any ice he could remember, and the fire was swept away with a brief sizzling sound. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, unsure of whether he was shivering because of the cold or because of his nervousness. He looked at her hand, then realized that it was tinted blue, and that the colour was crawling up her arm like watercolours soaking into a blank canvas. “You did this,” she said, voice as icy as her skin.
“I-I didn’t, I…” He looked around, desperate, face contorting in his anxiety, “I’m sorry, it was an accident, I didn’t mean to-“
“You did this.” She struck him across the face once, and he fell to the ground. Time stopped for a painful, lingering moment as darkness filled his vision. It felt like he was wheeling, like he was spiraling out of control, until he looked up.
There was no faceless crowd, no fire, no woman of ice. Instead there was litter on the ground, a typical grey sky, and four people in front of him wearing the same orange uniform. They were picking up the rubbish.
“Hey there, Barry,” said one - a tall, black haired boy - in a voice that was half menace, half friendliness. “How long have you been there perving on us?”
“My name’s not Barry.”
The boy continued to make an uncomfortable grab for his privates with the litter claw until the girl with all her hair scraped back gave him a sound punch on the arm. “Stop that, you prick!”
Rolling her eyes, the girl with dark skin and a mass of curly hair and the prettiest face he’d ever seen handed him one of the litter claws and a garbage bag. “Whatever. Just starting picking this shit up, yeah?”
He accepted both, and delicately picked up what appeared to be a half-used condom from out of the gutter (with the claw, of course) and placed it in his bag. Then, glancing at the other four, he smiled a private little smile to himself.