Alfred's fingers skimmed across the keyboard, a spider slower than molasses. He clicked the enter button five times, then backspaced his work, then hit the enter button a few more times, then backspaced all over again, the blank word document in front of him baking into his retinas, illuminating the halo around his blank face.
The worst part of work was waiting, in his opinion, anticipating his job to arrive, wondering what moon sliver would appear before him in the darkness, justifying the endless hours of tenebrosity. He typed the word 'Tired' then 'Quiet' then 'Dark' then 'Alone' but deleted them all when the paper arrived, carried by a featureless shadow he could never quite see or hear.
The clock on the wall across from him clicked its tongue as he read the assignment, sagging eyelids barely capturing the blurred characters strewn into words strewn into sentences. The computer hummed and he read it over again, blinking away the haze choking off his vision, rereading and rereading until the monotonous paragraph attached to his head like a melodic poem.
Tonight Arthur Kirkland would have a nightmare; he would wake up alone in his bed, situated just behind Alfred's back, and cry, salt water invisible in the dark. If a man cries but no one is around to hear it, did it really happen? Of course it happened, it happened even if nobody saw it, just like mitosis in cells or the shattering of a heart inside of the chest of a lonely lover.
Besides, Alfred would know it happened; it was his job to know after all. He was a dream catcher, a mute ghost that sat outside of Arthur's door and watched every subconscious creation slip through his fingers, into the bedroom, filling his skull with colorful explosions of impossible feats. He recorded everything he received, saving the delusion into a word document that embedded itself into the hard drive of Arthur's mind, kick starting his unconscious adventure.
Arthur dreamt of a lot of things, of flowers and subways and cities and sea sides, of real people and strangers and characters of novels you would never think to meet. He liked to sail in his dreams, stand on the edge of a ship against the wind and get swallowed into a whirlpool that imbibed him into a blackness that soon became the back of the eyelids. Maybe he felt good when he was drowning; maybe he liked the way he could hold the wind in his hands, like a god with a righteous grin on their face.
Either way, Alfred thought it was funny, because he much preferred to float in his dreams, running his fingertips through the dust of stars and making acquaintances with comets that charged by at the speed of high-speed monorails. Except Alfred did not dream, he never even slept, so he was not thinking this, why was he thinking this?
Alfred turned back to the stark screen, conflicted as the memorized passage swam about in his head. Arthur would dream of someone he loved and cherished and wanted to hold through the frightening rush of life, but they would not be there. Any corner he turned, under every rug he looked, they were dust in the air, always just out of his reach. He would scream and cry and tug at the roots of his hair, ripping every tooth in his head out one by one, painlessly, because it all hurt less than being alone, trapped from that one important person that was too engrossed in their own world to slow down and wait for him to catch up.
A selfish person, a child with an egomaniacal personality, who turned into the monster that terrorized the stressed, slumbering boy, sleeping silently under the slight luminosity of the waning moon.
Alfred's knuckles cracked as he got an idea, one that leaked out of his pores and infected the emotionless black all around. He could change it, he could make sure Arthur did not feel this dream, did not experience the mournfulness it caused. He could type in another dream of sailing, a temerarious journey that left him bright eyed and slightly pink in the sunlight. He could make Arthur happy, protect him from the duty he was called to fulfill, a shred of innocence preserved in all of the insanity.
Because it scared Alfred, the way the ink bled under his sweaty digits and the buttons shivered under his gaze, the feeling the dream gave him. It was one of utter loneliness and terror and fear and longing he did not know if he could ever forget the way it felt inside his mind, propelling his fingers across the keyboard, making him type out words he was not quite sure made sense at all.
He could feel the door breath behind him and hear Arthur's quiet sighs as he quaked in the darkness. The air was cold, his skin purple and ragged against the black buttons that vomited fragments onto the computer. He was breaking the law, disobeying his calling, fingernails cracking into puzzle pieces and form disintegrating into dust that cartwheeled into the wind.
Alfred woke up with his arm covering his eyes and a mouth drier than an abandoned stretch of desert. The light was a gray with early morning as he adjusted to the new splendor, the new reality spread out in front of him.
A dream about a dream, a dream that seemed to have some influence over the actual world, evident by the cold sweat that ran across his body.
He was not alone; next to him the bed shuddered as a small form shifted, muttering into the soft cotton, a desperate call for help. Alfred turned to watch Arthur's back convulse with sobs, face shoved into the tumescent pillow he rested on.
Alfred knew exactly what he was dreaming of, he was dreaming of him, of the abandonment and isolation he felt every minute he lived, of the one-sided affection he carried inside of his heart. Alfred knew this because he had let him dream it, had scrawled out the story and hit save, a new file to eat away at his mind.
He let him dream it because he knew he wanted to. Alfred did not create the dreams, he just made sure they happened, and Arthur wanted it to happen, he wanted to remember his own sorrow and remorse, wanted to wallow in it throughout the night, a self-mutilation of mental sorts.
Alfred let it happen because if he did not, he could not stop it, could not crawl on top of the dormant boy and rouse him awake with a kiss to the eyelid, making sure his now feverish skin stayed pressed against his own. The collection of water smeared across his warm skin as Arthur's breath quickened underneath the added weight, terrified and dazed and half-asleep throughout the call of a morning dove outside.
"Sh, I'm sorry, you had a nightmare, I'm sorry."
Arthur slowly calmed beneath him, chest slamming rapidly with the assault of his heart, stretched large enough to hit his ribcage.
"I just don't want to be alone, Alfred," his voice was a broken slab of glass that fragmented against the hard wood atmosphere surrounding the tangled two.
"I know, you aren't," Alfred let a hand come up to steal a tear from his cheek, wiping it against the clean sheet, not perturbed when it was quickly replaced by another.
"Do you love me?" His blood quickened and collected against the pools of his cheeks as he awaited an answer, closed eyes twitching in fear.
"Very much."
"Good."
The world quieted and dimmed around them as Arthur's eyes dried and his mind shut down once again, slipping back into the talons of the seraph of sleep.
Hello.
This honestly makes absolutely about zero sense, which is fitting since it is based upon a dream I had last night. I was assigned to filter other peoples dreams and decide if they were too harsh or acceptable, a human dreamcatcher of sorts.
Maybe it's because I have been lucid dreaming a bit lately that I feel like I have control over the dream world. Either way, I've always been fascinated by the subconscious, and I like to think Alfred would be a lucid dreamer who liked to go on amazing adventures in his sleep, saving worlds and exploring imaginary places, enjoying the sense of power it brings with reigning in one of the most confusing aspects of existing.
If you are confused, I'm glad. Writing is only half the battle, the rest of understanding literature is reliant upon the reader to interpret the meaning and formulate their own ideas. Was he really a dreamcatcher? Is Arthur even dreaming of him? Why is he at Alfred's house? Are they awake? I can't tell you, that is all up for you to decide. Everyone will take something different from the work, and I think that is the real beauty of stories.
Please review, favorite, and have a restful nights sleep.