WE CAN START OFF LOVING LIKE IT'S BREATHING
despite swimming yesterday and being very, very tired, i went to bed and had a hard time falling asleep. i was kind of cold and my arm still hurt and i want it to heal so i tried to keep it straight but that wasn't comfortable so i tossed and turned for a while.
So it was early, early morning when i started having this nightmare. It was one of those nightmares that are so real that they are even more terrifying than other nightmares.
I was in my house alone with my dog, Cody, when this man broke in. He was older maybe like fortyish, bald, and big. He came in through the kitchen, through the window and attacked me i think? We fought for a long time. I stabbed him with forks and pens and there was blood everywhere. I think if i didn't stop him, he was going to kill me. Finally, i stabbed him with a pen just behind his ear and that sort of stopped him. Then i crushed his hand in a phone book and used a fork to close it or something. that kept him put i guess and somehow got rid of him.
After that, i took Cody outside to pee. He wasn't on a leach because he's usually okay without it. It was pitch black, late at night, and we crossed the street to the neighbor's house that's usually next door so he could pee on their lawn. I guess that's what we usually did in the context of the dream. As we did this though, all these other people were walking their dogs. These people came out of nowhere and startled me. Their dogs were big and I had to make sure Cody didn't try to bark at them or he'd be done for.
The feeling of this dream was very distressed, very fearful, jumpy, and lonely. When I woke up, it was 5:45 and I was scared like after a typical nightmare. I sort of wanted to just get up then and not go back to sleep because going back to sleep meant having to wake up again later. Also, i was aggravated from all the stress in the dream. But i stayed in bed and fell back asleep, despite my discomfort.
When i woke, it was around 7:00 and it was hot in my room. I was actually like sweating. I had no idea what was going on and i was even more irritable. I threw off all my blankets, got cold again, pulled them back over me and fell back asleep.
When i woke again, late to school as usual, i vaguely recalled my dad saying that if i don't make it to school when he takes my sister, i will have to walk. However, when i finished getting ready for school, he returned home to take me to school, so i guess that was just a dream too, though i could have sworn it actually happened, which is something that happens to me a lot now.
so all this sort of fed into a story i started thinking about when it was really hot the other day.
this story is about an artistic couple, a painter and a writer, who decide to venture away from their homes for inspiration, a sort of retreat where they can be submersed in their art. They go to Arizona in the summer into the heat. Besides their experiences with drugs and a dependence on alcohol, their goal is to finish their respective projects before they return home. However, while they stay at the little cabin, they each begin to go a little crazy, the painter painting increasingly violent images and the writer confusing her dreams with reality. She decides to go to town and a man follows her back. He begins to terrorize their residence and in their altered state, their understanding of what is happening is greatly exaggerated.
they each have versions of what is going on, all of their perceptions changed because of the heat, the drugs, alcohol, and paint stench.
In the end, they make it out, both with projects they don't remember completing or even creating.