night fears
I know the factors that can be blamed for my night of nightmares - I worked late, and got home late, and ate very late (for me) last night. The greasiness of the bacon and the over-buttered nature of the rye toast probably didn't help. And I've been working late a lot, overstimulated and under-rested this week especially. And I did watch an episode of Hannibal before going to bed.
And as I drifted off, I thought: There's a certain kind of bright, sunny day that's terrifying to me. It happens in high summer, when the sun is so strong that it washes out the color of things, and the shadows are inky black in comparison. I can be warm and content, but underneath there is always a frisson of electric fear. I've never been entirely sure where this feeling comes from. A dream I had, a movie I saw, a book I read. That's what I was thinking about when I went to sleep.
I had dreams about violent deaths and violent hauntings... all very fragmented and horrible. I woke up and vividly imagined a torn-up woman entering my room. Not a zombie, but a dead, thinking, aware and malevolent being who wished me very, very ill. Shuffling with purpose toward my bed out of the darkness of the hallway, into the blue glow of my alarm clock. I fell asleep before I could dispel the image with any sort of reason or happy thoughts.
My last dream is the one I remember the best. I had been cursed somehow, and in the palm of my right hand, there was a bunch of wrinkled flesh. If I pulled the wrinkles back, an eye would open. It was clouded over; it was evil. It was infecting me. I knew a witch who had apparently taken care of a palm-eye problem for me before, with some arcane mixture of magic and chemicals. She wanted to make sure of something about the eye before she dealt with it again, so I had to abide this evil eye in my right hand for a while longer. I put my hand under running water and watched the eye open wide and stare at me as the diseased flesh of my palm pruned around it.
When I woke up this morning, I could still feel the eye in my hand. It was weighty and foreign in my fist. I can still feel it now.
And as I drifted off, I thought: There's a certain kind of bright, sunny day that's terrifying to me. It happens in high summer, when the sun is so strong that it washes out the color of things, and the shadows are inky black in comparison. I can be warm and content, but underneath there is always a frisson of electric fear. I've never been entirely sure where this feeling comes from. A dream I had, a movie I saw, a book I read. That's what I was thinking about when I went to sleep.
I had dreams about violent deaths and violent hauntings... all very fragmented and horrible. I woke up and vividly imagined a torn-up woman entering my room. Not a zombie, but a dead, thinking, aware and malevolent being who wished me very, very ill. Shuffling with purpose toward my bed out of the darkness of the hallway, into the blue glow of my alarm clock. I fell asleep before I could dispel the image with any sort of reason or happy thoughts.
My last dream is the one I remember the best. I had been cursed somehow, and in the palm of my right hand, there was a bunch of wrinkled flesh. If I pulled the wrinkles back, an eye would open. It was clouded over; it was evil. It was infecting me. I knew a witch who had apparently taken care of a palm-eye problem for me before, with some arcane mixture of magic and chemicals. She wanted to make sure of something about the eye before she dealt with it again, so I had to abide this evil eye in my right hand for a while longer. I put my hand under running water and watched the eye open wide and stare at me as the diseased flesh of my palm pruned around it.
When I woke up this morning, I could still feel the eye in my hand. It was weighty and foreign in my fist. I can still feel it now.
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