I Should Be Laughing: Dreams and Nightmares

Shadows dripped from the ceiling in long, drawn out strings, so thick and viscous, feeling like hot tar against her skin. Worse than that, however, far more frightening than the clammy, steamy darkness, was the fact that she was…Where is everybody?…utterly alone. Or was she? Something moved nearby; something…Who are you?…surrounded her, and she felt the closeness of these others pressing against her. Freakishly tall people, or so it seemed, mammoth strangers, crowding so closely she could scarcely move. No matter how hard she shoved, these silent giants would not budge.

A scream, fluid and gooey in her windpipe, nearly strangled her as it nicked a trail toward her mouth. Yet, the power of that nonexistent shriek infused her with the strength to wedge a path…Let me out!!…through this horde of unknowns before terror seized her, rendering her immobile. Squeezing into an opening here, a gap there, she sidestepped the spiny hands that endeavored to stop her, immense feet that sought to trip her up. These appendages, so alien to her, worked together to trap her in this shadowy, dank place. 

Fingers, sharpened into needles…Ouch!…pricked her face and arms, leaving deep scratches; her blood literally ran cold. Asphyxiated with fear, though her screams never fully formed, she pushed ahead without… Don’t you dare cry!…shedding a tear. Instead, ignoring the hands slicing into her skin, the feet stepping on hers, she thrust aside the scaly limbs and became aware that this wasn't any nameless, faceless mob encircling her.

Rather, it was a…It’s…I’m in the...forest, very much like the one on the hills above her old…God, no! Don’t take me…home that imprisoned her. Those gigantic redwoods ran from the Pacific coast to the highest hilltops; virgin forest, old growth. The kind of woods the environmentalists sought to save from the rape of lumber companies. Titanic …That’s why it’s so dark! It’s the…firs soared skyward; evergreen spires hidden in mist, thick trunks carpeted in damp moss, moist beneath her bare feet. Her hands caressed the bark, striated with ebony grooves, as she stepped over the vast…They aren’t feet, they’re…fern beds girding each tree. The soft fronds tickled now, rather than tripped; branches nudged and no longer scratched. At last, she was able to breathe, grasping that she was simply wandering through a forestland, until, all at once, a red dot appeared above the steeples of greenery,

Too small to be the sun, and too vivid, in the blurry onset of day, to be a planet, this wasn’t Venus or Mars. This red dot, sky high and trailing her every movement among the trees, blinked at her, beckoning, growing brighter. Unconsciously, she began… Duck and cover! Everybody…running and the trees, as though sharing her fear, instantly sought to protect her. Mammoth wooden towers stepped to one side, allowing her free passage and sprawling limbs bent to her, pushing gently. Pine needles that once cut, now… Help me please! Help me…pointed the way out.

Feeling the light throbbing behind her eyes, she began sprinting madly, wild and free, until entering a clearing, a corridor among the trees where the soil, once soggy and uneven, was flattened and hard. Wisps of…I smell the sea… fog drifted between the trees, as an ever-widening band of black tar, severed by a solid line of…Don’t cross me! Don’t you ever cross…white roses, unfurled at her feet. Her legs left the Earth, and her hands reached for the wheel of a…I’m in my…car, plowing through the haze, warmly and safely shielding her from the numbing fog and mammoth trees.

Yet again, a false sense of safety draped over her, until realizing she had no control over the vehicle. The steering wheel turned on a whim, and the gas pedal dropped progressively closer to the floorboards. Out of control, she rose up the mountain, and then sailed down the far side, swerving from one side of the twisted road to the other, headed straight for a wall of redwoods. Her foot pumped the brake…Stop! Please stop!…to no avail, and, reaching for the key, her fingers landed instead…Oh God! Why can’t you leave me alone?…on a flash of red, mocking her every move. The car crashed through the trees, out of the fog, into the glaring light of day.

Tumbling down a rolling…Forever… field at the edge of the sea and arrived at a house at the end of the…Skeleton… road. The gaping black maw of the front door…No No No No… opened wider to reveal row upon row of thorns, each one dipped in blood. She was home, except this couldn’t be her house. She didn’t belong there. No one did.

Nevertheless, the door was opening and the thorns were retracting; the essence of roses met her on the porch. Fingers of fragrance pulled at her, tempting her into the long hallway, where a line of blinking red lights climbed the banister toward… Everybody stop! …Mother’s room. Unaware of what was happening, she walked into the house; an iron door slammed behind her and bars of rusted memories crisscrossed the windows. She was…Welcome…home. But it was different, this house, it  was…Not my house. It’s too… clean and nice, with masks of roses everywhere, sprouting from tabletops, and growing in vines up every wall.

A slash of light bolted from the jade green room when, from the far end of the dining room, the kitchen door swung open. Suspended above the worn butcher block were three clunky white globes, the buds of three blood red roses; each globe bore the hand-painted portrait of a screaming…. Oh God! We never got out!  …child. Hers was first, and her brothers followed, and yet she could ignore the painful images, for it was to the sink where her eyes were drawn; to the hands, gaunt, old woman hands, wrinkled and spotted with age, using an enormous pair of garden shears to cut the flowers. Only these hands weren’t merely trimming the stems; they were snipping the heads off the roses, and dropping them to the floor. White blooms, snowy flakes, blanketed the yellowed linoleum, hiding the aged buds that had blackened in the years the hands had been waiting. All around the room colored vases of every size and shape were erupting from the countertops, and headless roses stuffed black lacquer urns on the windowsill. Once topped off by sweet scented blooms…. Why cut off the rosebuds?…now spinning china plates replaced the buds.

Paralyzed, she couldn’t go into the kitchen; she had to escape before the hands saw her and put the shears to her neck. Turning quietly…Please don’t hear me…and as meekly as possible, it was too late; the hands had seen her. Setting aside the clippers, the wrinkled fingers bent… Oh no!  Don’t make me!  …to her.  Calling to her the knuckles screeched and moaned; and she obeyed. It was best… I’ll be good. …to do what the hands asked.

Scooping up some dying petals, the hands, splotchy and brown, held the blooms out… Welcome home…for her. And, as she had been taught, as had been drummed into her head on a daily basis, she opened her own tiny hands…Take them goddammit!…for the flowers. Straining to hold all those velvet petals, her fingers quivered and, again, the old lady hands snapped. Petals flew; soft punches… Please don’t! I came home as I promised…to her face. She slammed her eyes closed, hiding the tears that would never come, but when she looked up again she spotted a glint of silver. The hands brought the scissors to her neck.

She was falling.