Dream
It’s as out of place as a howl in a mezzanine.
Sheet music in a birdcage.
Blood on a petal.
She seemed to just lack a certain bone of regret.
It’s a dream. I’m in my old house. In the kitchen. It’s night time but the lights are on. It looks unreal, somehow, but nothing’s out of place.
There’s a scuttling sound up near the ceiling of the yellow walls in the kitchen.
I look up. In the corner, lit by the harsh light, is a spider made of fingers. It’s got ten legs. It’s like two hands joined at the wrist and welded together. It looks horrifying. It looks like it would be warm and dry to the touch, just like regular hands. The wrongness of it is hard to define.
I close my eyes.
When I open them, there are thirty or so handspiders.
They’re crawling down the wall towards me. A few of them leap, horrifyingly nimble.
One of them hits the floor beside my bare feet. I bring my foot down hard on it. I feel a wriggling beneath my foot that feels like I’m standing on someone’s face. There’s a wetness that explodes and suddenly there are five smaller handspiders skittering out from underneath my feet. They are quicker than the larger ones.
I step on more of them as I run to my bedroom, the room that provides an illusion of safety.
They don’t respect that boundary. The come crawling into my bedroom, past the doorway. I can hear the thud of thumbs and fingertips as they gallop on the hardwood floors from the kitchen over to my room.
The fear I feel is visceral now. I have descended a few rungs down the evolutionary ladder into complete animal terror.
That’s when I hear her behind me.
She’s sitting on the floor of my room with her back against the wall. She’s an old friend. She’s looking around like she just arrived. Not startled, not scared, not confused, just looking around.
The handspiders rush past me to attack her. Their fingertips find the fabric of her dress and grab hold. Five handspiders are on her now, clumsily moving towards her face.
She looks down at them with astonishment. Then she smiles.
She thinks they’re cute. She laughs.
The handspiders turn to ash. Her laugh carries the weight of a sonic boom. It carries the weight of the shockwave of an atomic explosion to the handspiders.
Her laugh is no more than a familiar titter to me but the handspiders evaporate in a pulse outwards from her without time even to turn and flee. The ashes that are left dissipate in the air like dandelion seeds.
It’s as out of place as a bellboy in a forest.
Flowers in the hand of a monster.
A nest in a piano.
She seemed to just lack a certain knowledge of danger.
tags
Sheet music in a birdcage.
Blood on a petal.
She seemed to just lack a certain bone of regret.
It’s a dream. I’m in my old house. In the kitchen. It’s night time but the lights are on. It looks unreal, somehow, but nothing’s out of place.
There’s a scuttling sound up near the ceiling of the yellow walls in the kitchen.
I look up. In the corner, lit by the harsh light, is a spider made of fingers. It’s got ten legs. It’s like two hands joined at the wrist and welded together. It looks horrifying. It looks like it would be warm and dry to the touch, just like regular hands. The wrongness of it is hard to define.
I close my eyes.
When I open them, there are thirty or so handspiders.
They’re crawling down the wall towards me. A few of them leap, horrifyingly nimble.
One of them hits the floor beside my bare feet. I bring my foot down hard on it. I feel a wriggling beneath my foot that feels like I’m standing on someone’s face. There’s a wetness that explodes and suddenly there are five smaller handspiders skittering out from underneath my feet. They are quicker than the larger ones.
I step on more of them as I run to my bedroom, the room that provides an illusion of safety.
They don’t respect that boundary. The come crawling into my bedroom, past the doorway. I can hear the thud of thumbs and fingertips as they gallop on the hardwood floors from the kitchen over to my room.
The fear I feel is visceral now. I have descended a few rungs down the evolutionary ladder into complete animal terror.
That’s when I hear her behind me.
She’s sitting on the floor of my room with her back against the wall. She’s an old friend. She’s looking around like she just arrived. Not startled, not scared, not confused, just looking around.
The handspiders rush past me to attack her. Their fingertips find the fabric of her dress and grab hold. Five handspiders are on her now, clumsily moving towards her face.
She looks down at them with astonishment. Then she smiles.
She thinks they’re cute. She laughs.
The handspiders turn to ash. Her laugh carries the weight of a sonic boom. It carries the weight of the shockwave of an atomic explosion to the handspiders.
Her laugh is no more than a familiar titter to me but the handspiders evaporate in a pulse outwards from her without time even to turn and flee. The ashes that are left dissipate in the air like dandelion seeds.
It’s as out of place as a bellboy in a forest.
Flowers in the hand of a monster.
A nest in a piano.
She seemed to just lack a certain knowledge of danger.
tags