“Heart rate’s normal, and your breathing’s just fine” said the doctor as he sat in front of me. “Look straight ahead, and tell me”, he added as he shone his light in my eye, “are you sleeping well?”
The light shone over the vastness of creation. The universe was born anew and the symphony could resonate again.
We were so beautiful. We, instruments of the Great Composer. Dancing in the vastness of possibility, setting motion to notes and shaping the infinite trails of musicality. I listened, in awe at the synchronicity of it all, and heard the birth of new notes whose presence added melody to the All Symphony.
Then it happened once more, as before: An atonality.
I hear her accusing chord, and turn to flee…
“I think I’m sleeping enough?”, I lied, “Maybe six hours? Sometimes less, sometimes more?”
“Well, that’s not going to be enough for you to rest. You need at least eight hours, or your morale will be affected. Do you have any activities? Are you seeing someone?”
…and I fall into the bog. Tiny tendrils reach out to grab at my limbs. I need to make sure she’s safe, so I push harder out of the water and onto the muddy shore. She’s cradled in my arms and hanging on tightly.
She’s so young. No one should have to see their innocence taken from them at this age. We pushed at the world and it pushed back hard. Life overflowed and went uncontrolled. Even the dead did not have the privilege to stay that way. How many of us are left? Does it even matter?
As the old car drives along a deserted road, surrounded by nothing but the madness of the world, I find myself asking “How did we get here?”
She shifts in her seat, as if she heard me ask through her sleep.
My gaze drifts away to the distance, and I see…
“He’s right”, I tell myself as I lay in bed.
“They’re just dreams. That’s all.” So I take the pills, turn on the TV and watch some old movie about people who live in computers and martial arts.
……
“I don’t wake up from my dreams. I run away from them.”