Orange Fingernails

I had a dream today. It was so vivid and weird, it felt like an acid trip. Everything was just white, brighter than this screen, except these solitary orange fingernails in the midst of everything. They were just there, unattached to anything, but so orange, like broken bits of the sun. And someone kept insisting I had to find them, “find the orange fingernails”. But they were right there! It just made no sense, because the more I tried to reason with the voice, the harder it insisted. Eventually I tried to pick the fingernails up, but I had no body, no feet, no hands, so I just ended up flailing around, while those orange nails grew more and more orange, until I couldn’t bear to look at them.

I had the dream again. It was blurry at first, just like the first time, but I know it meant something. I can’t understand it. How should I look for the orange fingernails when I don’t even know what they are!

I wish I hadn’t written about the dream. Ever since I did, I can’t seem to get it out of my head. The thought of those orange fingernails keeps following me everywhere. I’ve started involuntarily reacting to the thought, trying to bite my own nails off, as though they could replace the nails in my dream.

Something new has happened. Instead of just biting, I’ve started scratching my body at night. I woke up with white scratch marks all over the dry patches of skin covering my arms. I feel sick. God, tell me what to do, I can’t understand why this is happening.

The scratching keeps getting worse. I stayed in a sort of sleepless stupor all night, picking at my skin with my ragged nails. Maybe if I could just find the orange fingernails, this could all stop and I could just go back to being a normal person again.

I’m so petrified, there’s a girl in bed with me and I can’t move or wake her because I don’t know who she is. She’s so beautiful, but so scary. She’s got gorgeous green eyes and fiery orange hair but, god, those fingernails. I don’t know if it’s a dream or not, because I’m awake and writing this, but she’s flickering before my eyes and it doesn’t seem so real anymore.

I had a new dream today and it was different. I woke up scratching as usual, but this time I was scratching at my wrists, right through the fabric and everything. I could feel the broken skin, cut and torn by those damn fingernails, but somehow it didn’t hurt. I felt unusually calm, happy even, that I had something else to worry about. But the worry didn’t come, nor did the fear. I got up and cleaned off the blood with some dry tissue. The blood looked like spatters of sunlight against the whiteness of the tissue. It was almost sublime.

Something’s happened to my body. I didn’t realize until today how different it looks since I started having the dream. Of course a part of it is all the scratch marks along my skin, but it’s more than just that- I can’t see myself anymore. I always prided myself on my ass, but that’s gone, along with any bits of fat anywhere else on my body.

I went to the dermatologist today. Even if I can’t stop the thought, I can stop the effects of it. I told her how I’ve been biting my nails and scratching in my sleep, and she said that’s fairly common with troubled sleepers. She gave me some creams and an ointment to put under my nails, and suggested I sleep with gloves on to let my skin heal. She also told me to go to a therapist, but I’m not crazy you know.

I’ve been sleeping better lately. I still have the dream every night, but it seems fainter and fainter, just a background to everything else. Maybe I’m healing. I’m still scratching, but it’s back to my arms, nowhere that it could draw blood. It’s a sign- I know things are getting better.

I felt great today. I went to the gym after so long and had lunch with a friend from college. She told me I looked thinner than ever and that she was jealous of my body. We talked about old college crushes and her boyfriend and work. She told me she had a job as a writer for a Nickelodeon show. I felt happy for her- she always wanted to work with kids. I barely had the thought at all.

I installed a TV in my room today. I’ve been meaning to get this done for a while now but I’ve been so lazy. Since things have been so much better lately, I rewarded myself with some Chinese food and watched my friend’s show. I felt so warm and comfortable, like a happy little kid with no fears and a huge appetite.

I woke up a while ago, feeling incredibly unsettled, but I’m not sure why. There was some vague orangeness in my dream, from what I can remember, but nothing that should have been as disconcerting as it was. I’m not going to worry though, that’s what made the thought so scary in the first place. It’s my own fault I was so weak, I’m just going to power through like I should have done all along.

I don’t know what to do. I thought by not thinking about it, I’d be able to stop thinking about it. But the very fact that I’m trying so hard not to think about it is making it the only thing I can think about. I’m so tired of trying to find these damn orange fingernails. I thought it was all over, I don’t understand why this is happening again.

I kept the TV on all last night, so if I woke up with one of those dreams, I could distract myself from all the darkness. Turns out I didn’t need it. The girl with orange hair slept in my bed again last night. I don’t know who she is, but I’ve been leaving the window open so my guess is she’s just been climbing in because she has nowhere else to go. I don’t mind, it’s nice to have some company when things get weird. And she’s really great at comforting me, she doesn’t say a word, but sits right beside me until I fall asleep again. She always leaves before morning though.

I’ve been dreaming about the nails every night since last week. They’ve actually become kind of beautiful. They look so much like fire against all that white, it’s hard not to be absolutely dazzled. I still don’t know what they mean, but I don’t think that matters you know. Maybe they came into my life for a reason, to be appreciated for their beauty. Maybe when I finally find them, I’ll know what beauty is.

I’ve realized something. The only way to find the nails is to find myself. The nails are a part of me, I just need to know which part. That’s why I’ve been doing all the scratching and biting. I need to go beyond the flesh and find the nails in my body. I still don’t know how to do it though, I need to figure out a plan.

I talked to the girl today. I told her all about my realization and she agreed with me that the only place the fingernails could be was inside me. I asked her how she had found her fingernails and she said she had created them. They were her babies. For a while I didn’t know what she meant, but then it hit me; her beauty was her own creation. By keeping the nails inside her for so long, she had been able to nurture them and give them their orangeness. I knew I could hold on to mine for longer, but I could feel inside me that they were ready.

I’ve thought about it long and hard, but I think I’m ready to do this. I have to harvest my womb, give birth to the nails I’ve been looking for. Of course I can’t give birth to them in the conventional way; that would be ridiculous. Instead, I’ve hatched upon a plan that the girl agrees will work best: I’m going to cut them out of my insides, help them escape my body.

I just got all my stuff ready. I’m not sure whether to use my nails or a knife, but I think the latter would be far more efficient despite the nails being more symbolic. I’m going to try to write with one hand and cut with the other, but it might be difficult because I’ll be leaving my body behind once I’ve found the fingernails. I just hope they are as orange as they were in my dreams, because otherwise it’ll be a waste of my creationary efforts.

I just made my first cut. I can’t say much more but I can already feel the orange fingernails emerging. They’re even more orange than they were in my head.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

“I don’t know why she did it, she seemed so happy the last time I saw her. She’d been keeping busy, going to the gym, her ass looked fantastic you know”

“She was always kind of weird though. Maybe it’s just an artist thing, she was literally always painting in college, remember?”

“Yeah, even when her mom died, instead of crying she started painting a sunset on our dorm window. I let her do what she want because she was all emotional and stuff, but god she was messy. She got orange paint everywhere, and the room stank up the entire hall. The stuff was on her fingernails for days.”

“Sounds disgusting, but she died like two days ago, so let’s cut her some slack. Want to get some juice?”

“Sure. I think I’ll have orange.”