/yesod

hiç vigilans somniat

  • waking up

    Slowly but surely, within the next few days…

  • weird stuff

    I said to my daughter “Get behind me.”

    “What’s wrong?”

    “I’m not sure. Something weird’s going on.”

    “I can handle weird, dad.”

    I looked at her. “My kind of weird.”

    She got behind me.

    [I’m guessing at the date on this one, based on something I posted to Pinterest seven months ago. Apparently this dream involved skeletons and a doctor’s waiting room.]

  • thugs and church

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated May 4th, 2003]

    …and as I’m walking through the parking lot towards my car, I see two guys approaching — I make eye contact, just to established that they know that I know they’re there . . . One of them nods and says “How’s it going?” And I realize that I am in trouble. They’re both heavier than I am, and they move with a raw plodding strength that I do not possess and cannot hope to match — Like an idiot, I’ve parked on the far side of the lot. The other cars are very far away and a few people are moving in the darkened a lot.

    As I said, they’re big and they spread out a bit, drawing my focus first one way and then the other. I exchange words with the smaller of the two, can’t remember now what was said but things escalate and I realize that I’m not looking at a typical robbery — These guys are looking for someone to be and I’m more than convenient.

    Bad news for me.

    And this is the strange thing… I don’t remember how I got away from them but I did.

    I remember shouting to a group of people who were standing in a pool of light 100 yards away… I remember leaving my car behind — perhaps Iran?

    At any rate, I get away and at least one thing sank in — I wasn’t clear of them. They’d be waiting for me when I went back for my car.

    The next day is Sunday and I am at church — not my real church but one of those awful Seeker churches tucked away in an industrial park behind a Sam’s Club and a warehouse.

    And then everything gets murky. The dream went on for much longer, but it just didn’t stay with me long enough to capture it here.

  • and she smiles

    …and when I walk through the door, she’s sitting there on the couch, holding a cup of tea to her lips, one leg tucked under her, staring out the window and I stand there, watching her for a moment and she looks up and sees me, and she smiles.

    And I wake up.

  • splinters

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated July 10th, 2002]

    Yesterday morning I woke up with splinters in the palm of my hand — not sure how or from where and I couldn’t help wondering where I’d been wandering the night before.

  • blood

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated June 19th, 2002]

    You wake up with blood in your ears, you wonder what it means.

  • nursing home

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated November 4th, 2001]

    This place is full of voices. I can’t tell if what I’m hearing is from one who is here or who used to be here — but it hardly matters which. I’m hearing voices all day.

  • nephew, demon

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated September 12th, 2001]

    And in my dream my three-year-old nephew [REDACTED] — plagued by depression and despair all his short little life — has finally given into his despair, twisting a length of picture hanging wire around his neck and hanging himself. I find his stiff body eyes open, jaw clenched. Although he is dead, his body continues to move and walk. He is speechless and his face is blank, almost hateful. We all avoid him, his stiff legged roaming across the floor, his baleful gaze. When his mother comes home, it is up to me to break the news to her. His mother, in my dream, is my aunt [REDACTED] — the mother of my cousin, I know, makes no sense — but she is full of cold rage and asks me why I didn’t take the wire from around his neck she blames me, I am certain of it and I can only point in horror to his animated corpse. Ignoring me, all business now, she takes the horrid little child and her arms raising him up and speaking quietly to him. She is a Christian fundamentalist and I realize that there is something far worse at work here then death. He twists away from her, in her arms, and stares at me with a blankly cunning look — and hideous, diabolical language pours out of his mouth like vomit, demonic and awful. He spews his bubbling, babbling talk at me and in growing horror I find my breath is gone, I cannot speak, I cannot pray any words of protection, my lips are numb and my tongue is thick in my mouth, and then, With ever-growing horror, I hear my own bubbling voice respond in kind, echoing his hideous demonic voice with my own.

    I wake in horror and dread, mouthing the words “Veni Sancte Spiritus” in my gasping, choking voice.

  • the promotion

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated July 25th, 2001]

    Nothing good is coming…

    …and because my brother is being appointed to such a prestigious position as ambassador, our whole family has been invited to come and take part in the ceremony and reception.

  • the breakfast date

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated May 15th, 2001]

    …and I am sitting there in Nate’s diner waiting for her to arrive. Finally, my time running short, I get up to leave. At the counter, the night shift waitress turns over the reign to the day shift. Nate stands, friendly and smiling wryly with his shirtsleeve pinned up to this left shoulder, a war injury I assume — perhaps mistakenly. While the women bicker over tips and time clocks, Nate hands me a bag. “On the house,” he says. Because I have been stood up yet again by my breakfast date.

    He smiles as I leave, wading through the snow to my car.

    And when I wake, it is summer and I realize that somewhere between the diner and my car, I lost the bag Nate had given me, its paper bottom stained dark and greasy from the warm chorizo and eggs he had prepared special for me out of pity.

  • the girl in the warehouse

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated May 4th, 2000]

    …and because I have been thrown out of my house, lost any connection to my wife and children, I am living in an old building adjacent to where I work — downtown, in the old industrial district, where an empty warehouse is easy to find.

    I barely have any clothes and none of my belongings, but I make due — hiding my shame by getting to work extra early each day and staying late.

    Shortly I come to realize that the place where I am staying is haunted — a small girl with dark hair and pale clothes flits about shyly in the evenings. She is sad and somewhat horrible as well. The is a demoniac sense to her, the way she pops up without warning.

    Late in the evening, on my way back to my new “home”, I pass by a bar and some women out front shout at me. One of the comes over and after a brief conversation she suggests I bring her home with me. I do.

    We get back to my small room. She is already all over me.and before I can lock the door she is kneeling on the bed, unclothed, pulling her dress up over her head.

    I turn to see her there, and I stop for a moment.

    She smiled wide and warm, and then I see her eyes dart to a place beside me and her smile falters.

    There dark girl is there, hideous and livid.

    And I suddenly realize that she is not a ghost, never was a ghost — this thing was never alive, never drew breath or felt joy. What has come is older than anything in creation, masquerading,

    She looks at my companion, frozen in a parody of her formerly seductive pose, and she speaks.

    I don’t remember what was said, but the truth of it strikes home with such force that my “date” is driven from the room, sobbing and weeping.

    And, alone with that terrible pale girl, I wait. She looks at me for a moment.

    And then she is gone.

    The next day, in my dream, my secret is found out by the people I work for. I can’t recall how, but it is discovered.

    The big surprises: First, they aren’t angry with me for being there, they’re sympathetic in fact. I find out that one of them also did a similar thing with his ex-wife — he stayed where I am staying.

    Face with this information, I don’t say anything but I know my face tells it all.

    “Yeah, I was there for a few weeks,” he says, watching me.

    “Is the ghost still there?” He asks, offhand.

    “Yes.” I am dumbfounded.

    “Man, she used to scare the shit out of me.” He laughs.

    One of the others says “What’s this ghost?”

    We tell him and, goaded by his fascination, I offer to bring him down.

    “I gotta see this,” he says.

    As we walk down the hallway, it begins.

    Far up the hall, we can see her standing there watching us.

    As we approach, I recognize a familiar feeling of cold dread.

    Brackets and boxes fly off shelves, thrown at us by unseen forces.

    Prepared for this, nerves ringing like an alarm, I knock them away from us — grabbing a broom and brandishing it like a sword.

    My friend marvels at my skill.

    “Yeah, I’ve got a high midichlorian count.”

    We continue on towards the girl. She is hideous and pale, and the lines other face are very dark, her eyes like pits.

    I know what she is, and it is no ghost — she is something far older, engaged in a grotesque masquerade, playacting the child in a diabolically ironic manner.

    We sit and speak of childish things. I am hoping to draw her away from my real thoughts but I can feel the rage boiling within her and I cannot stop it when it finally surfaces.

    Nearby an old man sleeps on the sidewalk, drunk beyond all waking.

    She finally reveals what I already know.

    I am talking with her, realizing that my phony jocular child voice is not only annoying to her, but entirely unnecessary… I know she knows that I know what she truly is, and I know that she knows that I know that she knows that I know.

    But I keep up the pretense; I can see her fighting it at every step.

    Finally, we discuss the colder weather and Halloween is coming soon, I remark.

    And with that, she goes ballistic — force and rage radiating off of her, she’s halfway levitating, screaming with rage.

    And then I wake up, frightened by one of my own dreams for the first time in a very long time.

    [2013 Addendum: Although this dream raised a number of disturbing feelings, I remember being very proud of the Star Wars joke. In fact, I still am.]

  • blue eyes

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated September 28th, 1998]

    Dream of a child, born late and fully formed — with an unmistakeable look of recognition in her clear blue eyes.

    Another dream of a bazaar in Night City — somewhere in The Midlands, at least — and a momentary flirtation that, once over, stays with me for the rest of the night.

    Never free of dreams.

  • brief despair

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated August 10th, 1998]

    …horrid dreams, my two children poisoned and dead in their coffins, and no one to save me from my despair…

  • flames, new and old

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated June 16th, 1998]

    …and, somehow, in my dreams I hear a huge crash — metal and glass — ignoring it, I dream on…

    …a flickering light from outside — flash of orange through the blinds — send me up to the window, women’s voices, laughing and talking . . . and I see them gathered around a fire, a smashed and twisted wreckage to one side, smoke from the fire rising through the branches above . . . I run out to comfort them but…

    ..I’m awake, my son crying in the next room…

    …dreaming again, this time the Queen of Middle Night puts in an appearance of an old girlfriend from years past — the red haired dancer. Old flame, slowly kindled, surprisingly warm. Her family home, my son and I just passing through . . . she embraces me, a big sister, a past lover — though she was, in reality, neither. Passing through the rooms, everyone sleeping quietly, I see a black puma chained in a dark corner. It blinks once, green eyes blazing, hungry. I walk away. Slowly.

    We move on and, when it is time, I go. Her farewell kiss is surprisingly sweet…

    ..and, in darkness, I am awake once again.

  • home invasion

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated January 6th, 1997]

    I stand in the front window and watch as the car makes its second pass, making myself as visible as possible to the men inside . . . letting them know that there are people home and they’ll have to find someone else to rob.

    On their fourth pass, I make eye contact with the driver and I know then that this is no normal robbery. They want me to see them.

    We stand there, watching the pass and I realize that we’re being diverted.

    Misdirection.

    Someone is already in the house, I know. Someone came in the back — the car had been empty? The car had been full on the first pass, but the last few times, I could see that the men inside were not so cramped; one of them was gone.

    They were already in the house.

    Through the house I go, searching.

    Passing by my room I see that the french doors have been kicked in.

    Someone is in the house.

    In a back room, my teenage daughter’s room, I find them. He is sitting at the piano, holding a gun in her face. She sits on the bed, crying.

    With a broken crystal candlestick, I stab him in the back — just to the left of the spine — before he can turn.

    Push the splintered end deep into him, glancing off the shoulderblade, scraping against the bone.

    He breathes once, heavy, and then dies.

    When the car passes by the window again, I am there — his head in my fist, raising it high, my fingers in his hair.

    I see the eyes widen as they see his glazed, empty gaze.

    I meet the eyes of one in the car as it speeds off — that is the one, I know, who will return for revenge.

    The car drives off into the night and I drop the head, realizing that — for the first time — it is snowing in the Midlands.

    [2013 Addendum: This is a odd one to look at now. In 1997, I did not have a daughter. Now I have two. And, for what it’s worth, my bedroom (four houses and sixteen years later) has French doors. That’s not going to help me get to sleep any easier.)

  • the recursive old woman

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated December 6th, 1996]

    …I’m standing in front of a shelf full of journals and books in the dead man’s rooms. I take one down, finding [ILLEGIBLE] and poetry, handwritten recollections between the pages — it dawns on me that these are the rooms of my great uncle, the missionary to Burma, and that only I know he is dead.

    The guard eyes me through the front windows and I move on to the inner rooms, marveling at the collection of antiques, souvenirs, and artifacts [ILLEGIBLE] the grimy gray walls, the peeling paint, and the dusty windowpanes.

    Within the inner rooms, I come upon a woman — elderly and wholly lovely. She embraces me and slowly we back to an old bare mattress with a brass frame and headboard tarnished and lovely.

    …and then the guard is knocking at the window and shouting and I am still standing at the bookshelf, a book open before me with a picture of an alluring elderly woman open on the page.

    And I know I am dreaming, but still I set the book back upon the shelf and move once again into the inner rooms, coming to the place of the woman yet again, embracing and being embraced yet again, awakening once more at the shelf of books with the guard behind me, knocking on the window of the dead man’s rooms.

    And again, I turn to pass back into the inner chamber again,

    And again.

    Again.

    Until I wake in the dark morning.

  • lion

    …and in my dream it is a lion that circles and follows me—a savage pet that, inexplicably, had made us his family…

    …I see a screen door opening and closing, sweeping its shadow across the afternoon light…

    …I see a four poster bed in a sea of boxes, an island of bitter regret…

    …I see my son.

  • uneasy sleep

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated April 11th, 1994]

    And it doesn’t get any better as the days go on.

    Wasted time and uneasy sleep. Like Macbeth, I have murdered the deep life — drowned by days, and smothered under chemical work and answering machines.

  • haunted

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated April 4th, 1994]

    Ghost dreams. Windows that won’t stay closed. Doors opening onto nothing.

    Tired and depressed, once again.

  • Mister O

    Shut up in the darkness.

    “Leave her be, O, she’s in hell.”

    I demand her release from the Shadow Cupboard.

    A final kiss for my mistress and then I turned to look for my wife — seeing only a mad, wizened, blind creature scuttling in the darkness.

    Dear God. And I thought I was in Hell.

    Awakening with a story — whole in my mind — driving it forward.

  • wedding errand

    Walking through a parking lot towards a line of children. Accosted, my money taken. Finally convincing them to let me go — “Please, I’m getting married today.”

    Amazingly — I’m released.

    But the ceremony has started and I’m late.

    Putting on a tuxedo in the great underground empire while searching for a washcloth.

    Sent on some pissant while of an errand by my wife, my own wedding starts without me.

    * * *

    My chest is continually constricted and I have blood in my eyes.

    The gray dawn has returned and my nights are only pain.

  • the blood curse

    Blood, spelling out a hastily scrawled curse or warning:

    “IF YOU CONTINUE, YOU WON’T SEE THE END.
    IF YOU WRITE IT, IT WILL NEVER BE READ.
    IF YOU TELL THE STORY, NO ON WILL LISTEN.”

    And blood scrawling away to nothing.

    A moment to pause and gasp.

    And the voice of Constantine rises within.

    “You want to fuck with me? I’ll bloody choke you, mate.”

  • the blood curse

    Blood, spelling out a hastily scrawled curse or warning:

    “IF YOU CONTINUE, YOU WON’T SEE THE END.
    IF YOU WRITE IT, IT WILL NEVER BE READ.
    IF YOU TELL THE STORY, NO ON WILL LISTEN.”

    And blood scrawling away to nothing.

    A moment to pause and gasp.

    And the voice of Constantine rises within.

    “You want to fuck with me? I’ll bloody choke you, mate.”

  • dust and bones

    Dreaming of empty houses. Rooms like vaulted graves, Corners filled with dust and bones.

  • limbo

    So I have received a dose of poison and I am slowly dying. My body is slowing down and seizing up. I can feel my muscles and joints hardening… Dying.

    As I’m going, my father is holding me and I’m crying. I’m asking him questions. “Will I go to heaven? Tell [REDACTED] I’ll miss her.”

    I can feel my body going, my vision fading. It’s all darkness.

    I’m crying and I say “Oh Daddy…”

    Then I die.

    Complete blackness.

    The next moment there is light and music. I can hear “Oscillate Wildly” by The Smiths. I look down at my feet. I’m standing on a tile floor. I look around.

    The Grim reaper strolls by and says “Welcome to Hell… er, I mean Limbo. Sorry.”

    I am in Hell. And Hell is a grocery store.

    Shelves. Produce. Boxes. Sterile Muzak.

    Instead of a shopping cart, I push a gurney. My body is stretched out on it.

    I push the gurney up and down the aisles and the dream loses form…

    [Note: Where I feel it is appropriate or relevant, I’ll include the names of people who show up in my dreams. In some cases, however, it may be prudent to redact these — as I’ve done here.]