Strange Dream in the unfamiliar dark

I had trouble sleeping last night. First time in the new apartment. For some reason the unfamiliar dark always freaks me out the first few weeks in a new residence. Now when i'm doing hotels or crashing at someone elses place I don't give it a second thought. That's because it's a darkness I don't own, theres nothing personal to it, i'm just hitching a ride on someone elses shadow; next stop sleep. But this is different, the ceiling is a lot lower, a coffin lid dangling over the bed. Hypnogogic voices whisper to me. I distinctly heard Ask him? over and over again coming from the closet. A form moves out of the corner of the room and crawls towards the bed. Footsteps come from everywhere and a strange face is trying to peer through the blinds in the window at me. Theres nothing you can do but wait it out, try and take your mind off it. Beat off and hope for the best. If my childhood monsters have returned to snatch me out of my bed they're gonna find me in a post orgasmic slumber with a pistol under the pillow. "I came back for the pancakes" she tells me, rattling the handle of the screen door. I was standing a pile of trash, sifting through broken tv sets, papers, empty frames, paper plates, chipped coffee mugs and plastic dinosaurs. I'm trying to find my bicycle. I know it's here somewhere. I do my best to ignore her but the 'pancake' remark catches me off guard. I look over at her. She's different. Younger and softer. The dancer I used to have a crush on all those years ago, the impossible wish buried deep under the realities of my identity digging itself out of the hole of necessary denial. I can't help myself. I walk over to the door and open it up. She stands there a second smiling warmly. I tell her to come in and steps inside and immediately begins screaming. The sound is inhuman, a dying animal hemorrhaging rage. She starts grabbing her hair and ripping it out in clumps and blood is starting to trickle down her face. I grab her by the wrists but she's a lot stronger than I expected and she flips me onto the pile of trash. She starts strangling me and the whole time shes still screaming. Next thing I know i'm running down a deserted highway at night. The phone rings and I answer it. I'm standing next to the Magpie, behind him is a ship, a naval vessel of some unfamilar class. Behind it is a magnificent sunset, a tangerine blue sky burning behind a tropical island. He tells me that they aren't ready to sail yet. That they've been waiting on me and that it's time now for me to board.

I wake up before the alarm clock. I piss in the dark. Find and light a cigarette up for company. Then I sit on the edge of my bed, waiting for the first light of the sun to come.



Fussli, Johann Heinrich
The Nightmare
1781