Dreams

Fiction Fragment Friday

This week has been something of a rough one. I’ve canceled a lot of things I had planned and it would be so easy to have skipped posting something this week. I can’t do that though. It is too easy to slip into the habit of skipping and lose the habit of writing regularly. So I pushed through and finished the story I had started. Like many it came from one line popping into my head and letting myself explore where the story took me.

     They say dreams are a way for our subconscious mind to communicate with our conscious mind.  Well if that’s true than mine is a right bastard.  The only dreams I have are either nightmares or so weird I question me own sanity.  If this is how my conscious and unconscious mind communicate, they need some serious relationship counseling.  Or at least a proper anger bang to work though some issues.  As it is there’s not much rest to be had from sleeping.

     Every night starts with the same dream.  I step through a door into a bright white room with a dishy red head standing there waiting for me.  She asks me to sit down and suddenly there’s a big leather chair in front of me.  The bloody thing just pops in out of nowhere and is the single most comfortable piece of furniture I’ve ever sat on.  Course I haven’t really sat on it since it’s just a dream.  The whole scene feels familiar at this point and puts me in a relaxed mood. 

     Once I’m properly relaxed, she sits back into her own chair across from me.  The chair isn’t there when she starts sitting, but there it is like it was always there by the time she finishes.  She starts asking me questions like she is some kind of psychiatrist.  Like some daft idiot I start blabbing everything she wants to know.  I’ll tell her about my day, my work, world news, and how I feel about it all.  The whole time she just sits there taking notes on a clipboard I never see her pull out. 

     That is how every dream starts, but after that it goes all mental.  I’m trying to leg it with some thing chasing after me.  I might be on the street, in an office building, or even in the bright colorful world of some kids show.  The thing chasing me though is always there right on me heels.  I never see it, but I can feel it breathing on the back of my neck.  Then I’m ripped apart by some very sharp claws.  I see them come through my chest and wave hi at me.  No matter what I do every time it catches me. 

     I always thought you wake up when you die in a dream, but instead I find myself in a restaurant with the red head sitting opposite me.  It isn’t always the same restaurant, but it is always empty except for us.  She is yakking on about something or rather but I don’t rightly care.  I’m thinking about that claw through my chest.  It all feels normal though and before I know it I’m not even thinking about the beast.  I just wanna make this bird happy. 

     The meal always ends with her giving me a kiss on my cheek.  I’m not comforted though.  It makes me restless and fills my whole being with anxiety.  I’m trapped and I need to escape by any means necessary.  The dream varies from there, but it is always the same up to that point.  When I wake up the anxiety is still there in the fore of me brain screaming that something horrible has happened. 

                I know something is off with these dreams, but there’s not really anything I can do about them.  I’ve tried sleeping pills, getting hammered, and working out until I can barely move.  It all happens the same though.  That’s not even the weirdest part though.  See last night when I woke up from the dream I hit the loo and caught sight of meself in the mirror.  There on my cheek was the red outline of lipstick.