Nightmare
The weather is glum and I felt compelled to share something sad. Something terrible.
Content warning. All the stuff.
This again?
I’m falling, endlessly soaring into dark nothingness. I taste raindrops on my tongue as the world strobes slowly into focus. The road is wet below, and I hear tires spraying water onto the sidewalks– a muffled curse when one hits a puddle and showers pedestrians in a dirty gray splash. The raindrops pelt my skin like a million tiny razor blades as I gain speed. I can smell falafels wafting up from a food truck. Lights dance on the reflective glass of the buildings and even though I’m terrified, I can’t help but admire their beauty. I don’t want to hit the pavement, but I’m resigned. I’ve been here before; I have dreamt this dream a thousand times over, and it always ends the same way.
FLY.
FLY! Fly, fly, fly! A voice echoes from far away. Hah. As if. I’ve never been able to take control of a dream before. My ex told me once–about ‘lucid dreaming’-- said he did it every night. I’ll never understand how. I’m helpless in here. I don’t want to be helpless in here.
I will myself to stop, to FLY. For a moment I hover… and… keep falling. Oh well– it’s just a dream. I cross my hands over my face to fend off the sharp rain and settle in to wait for the end. It won’t end– that same far away voice echoes. I hit the pavement and feel every inch of it, from the crown of my now broken skull to the tips of my shattered toes. I know I’m dead, and you’d think I’d just wake up, but no. This fun-fest isn’t over yet.
I’m dead, and I’ve forgotten that I’m dreaming.
My family is shrieking. Someone is laughing.
In a dark corner at the back of the funeral parlor, an enormous man sits in a too-small chair. His sagging flesh hangs over the arm rests and his eyes are cold. He’s laughing. And laughing. And laughing. He laughs without meaning, without purpose, without sanity. How dare he laugh? I’m floating near the ceiling, but I clamber down to confront this laughing man. I claw my way over, and it’s as if I’ve become intangible, but I will slap this man’s sullen jowls if it’s the last thing I do. I’m so close when he turns his cold eyes on me.
“You want me to stop?” he asks, and his voice is familiar. Oh God.
I lose all of my air and suck down gulping breaths. Sam. Oh God– it’s Sam.
I can’t. I can’t go there. My body begins to fight in the waking world, legs kick, and then still. No--the water voice is barely a whisper.
His breath is on my neck, and he’s saying he loves me. He has a beautiful voice. I love him into the deepest depths of my soul when he uses it to sing to me. Who am I kidding, I love him into the deepest depths of my soul when he does anything to me.
The seat belt is digging into my lower back. “You want me to stop?” Sam asks again in his lovely voice.
“Yes–Please–you’re hurting me—” fear creeps into my voice without my permission.
“No–” he says, and his voice is mean. It hurts worse than the skin rubbing into the buckle.
“Sam– please.” I’m becoming frantic, beginning to struggle a little. He just presses me down and smothers my words with a kiss. I’m trapped. “Please–NO!” I muster some strength into my voice, but he doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t care. Oh, Sam… my Sam… WHY, Sam?
I whisper no like a prayer.
And then I’m shaking, and awake in an early dawn glow. My husband has shaken me awake. There is deep sadness in his eyes. His thumb draws worried circles on my shoulder and I shrink away. “Please– don’t touch me,” I say in a sleep-scratchy whisper. He pulls back and mouths a sorry. I forgive him. He didn’t do anything wrong, afterall. I curl up in the shower and let the warm water wash away the cold rain drops, the laugh, the seatbelt buckle bruises. The nightmare fades, and I’m whole once more, but no matter how many times I wash, I still have a small scar on my lower back– in the shape of a seat belt buckle.