I must be dreaming. I know I must be, because I can smell fresh air laden with the wet, fresh smell of spring. I know I'm dreaming because I feel soft, pliant grass underneath me instead of a hospital bed and one of those damn, awful, white linen sheets. The kind that aren't ever soft enough or warm enough to be useful or comfortable. I wish I could say it didn't hurt either, but it does. It always does, though not as bad as when I'm awake. Outside my dream I can sense, feel the dull murmur of the thousand other people in the hospital. A dull, grey hum, mixing all the thoughts and emotions together like a child with paint expecting to find a rainbow, only surprised at the dull, disgusting, colorless mess. I wish I knew how long I've been asleep, how long I've been in this damn hospital. But then, maybe I don't want to know. A needle pierces my arm, but I still sleep. The morphine enters my veins and the pain ebbs even further, washed away by a chemical cloud.

Slowly I start to realize that there's nothing here in my dreamscape at all, that I'm alone.. And but for some ancient, flimsy bathrobe, I'm naked. I can feel my throat convulse, my jaw lock into place as my mind recognizes the dream that is to come. Yet somehow I am still very much asleep, embedded into unconsciousness with a vengeance and a will. I guess I still hate getting up, even if I'm sick of nightmares and sick of being sick. I'll wake up with a sore throat again, even though not a single word will pass my lips. It's happened before. So many times before. In my dream I see a sickeningly bright man, who is blinding against the dull, polluted pink sky and wet, dark brown grass. I won't remember what happens. I never really can. But while it happens it's horrible and inside my head I watch myself scream with a detached and morbid fascination, wondering when-oh-when this is all going to kill me. Because it will kill me. I know. There's no question of that. I can see it in his eyes. The eyes of a frighteningly sane, anti-social lunatic. My lips are bleeding, as if I had really bit my lip too hard, but I hardly even move in my sleep now.

I used to thrash. I used to scream. I used to rip all the damn hoses and cords out over and over, even as they tried to put them back in. They couldn't get me to stop. They gave me so many sedatives they were afraid they might kill me. Kill me fools, kill me! I'm already dead. Eventually, it was determined I had some sort of allergic reaction to one of the hundreds of serum they keep pumping into my systems to keep me alive. I don't know if that was true but they changed yet another something, and suddenly I found myself aware, sleeping and yet still conscious, a strange, fleeting sort of duality that kept me intrigued, fascinated me. Gave me something to ponder about when my hands became to weak and frail to hold onto a book. When my fingers finally hurt too much to lick and turn a solitary page. I decided to try and expand on this occurrence. This sensation of existing in two places was so..perhaps not natural, but not strange. Just an alternate way of doing things. Like sliding an extra tumbler on a lock and revealing a secret hiding place within a safe. And for reasons I still can't unbaffle--and perhaps I shouldn't--coexisting in two places of such exquisite pain at once seems to terminate most of the waking pain in my body. Mostly.

I still pay for it when I wake up. Aches, bruises, bleeding, itchy eyes and lots of sore throats. It works better when I don't move. That's why I don't thrash anymore. It took a long time, but they were pleased that whatever trauma it was seemed to be working out nicely, and that I slept much better as the weeks, months, years rolled on. They could finally ease up on all the sedatives that were threatening my vitals. My eyes barely move, I've been told, even though I know I'm experiencing REM sleep. No, I don't move around anymore.

Now I sleep as still as death.