by Megan Auffart
Hehe, I'm starting to like the author warning things. They give me a chance to ramble a bit. Anyways, this story isn't that graphic at all, but I just wanted to say that I orignally meant for it to be scary and it turned into a drama instead. Go figure, huh? I like this one. This sounds bad, but I really did put a lot of myself into writing this. Please review. Good reviews inflate my ego so much.
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Sometimes when I dream, it's like a fan that twists around and around with a cord or a string attached to one of the blades. Every full revolution it makes, the cord grows shorter and shorter and I'm helplessly drawn towards the fan. It's like I can't remove the cord from me, like its an umbilical cord or something that's attaching me to imminent death. But will I die? If I'm connected to death even through life, will I die?
I see death in my dreams. Perhaps I should say 'death' with a capital D, like a name or a title. Perhaps not. Perhaps I'm simply personalizing the strange, dark figure that dances in my mind at night, through and over the sharp blades of the fan like there's no tomorrow. But there is no tomorrow for death. It's only yesterday in her realm.
So what the hell am I going on about, you might ask? I'm not one of those Goth people who's completely obsessed with black and dying. Hell, my favorite color's blue. Sky blue, at that! But I'm not like normal people. Not by a long shot.
When I was ten, I think I first realized that what I was dreaming at night couldn't possibly be what everyone else dreams. I never talked in class, but just sat there, watching. People amaze me. They're always so random and predictable at the same time but they keep on thinking that no one is watching them, or when someone does watch them and they know it, they smile or frown and put on an act. No one's real to the average person. They themselves are the 'realest', they believe. They're fooling themselves and somewhere deep down I think they know that. I think that they're afraid to see that everyone else is just as complex and screwed up as they are. If they did see that, then they'd be forced to realize that every mean, cruel thing they've done in their past has affected the other person in a very big way. They are all as real as everyone else. Everyone else but me.
I'm not like them. I've probably said that before a hundred times but no one believes me. "Aww, sweetheart!" They'll say, like I was a foolish four year old, incapable of intelligent thought. "You're just the same as all your friends."
That's a lie. For starters, I have no friends. I'm far too quiet for all the self-centered girls in my class to talk to. I say what I have to say and leave the rest of the conversation to their imaginations. I wear black a lot. Not black clothes, though. I wear blue and green and orange and any color besides black, because if I wear black I'll be true to myself and I don't want to be. If I am true to myself then I'll realize that I'm not as real as the other people are. I'm the inverted psychopath. I walk so carefully down a sidewalk in case I might step on a bug. I hate death but I love her at the same time. I don't love the death you're probably thinking about, though. I don't love it when six tons of bricks fall down on top of a walking tour of elderly grandmothers. I don't love it when the radio falls into an occupied bath tub. I love the death that dances in my head at night. Like a friend. Like a mother.
I can remember only once when I talked to her, though. It had been a bad day for me. The teachers in my school had brought out my classmates for the annual picnic. I had sat by myself on the grassy hill, even though it was still a bit damp from the storm we'd had a day before. A large puddle of mud had developed at the bottom of the hill, as large as one of those baby swimming pools that you buy for a toddler because you don't have enough money for a real pool.
A couple of the boys in my class had spotted the mud just after they had spotted me. They had formed one of those little huddles that you see on football games and were talking excitedly. I think I had realized what they were planning even before they did anything, but some secret part of me was whispering to my tensed muscles and wild, panicked eyes that they were just playing and that maybe they wanted me to play with them. Maybe I could make friends with them and the girls in my class too, and we could get together at each other's houses and braid each others hair and giggle about the cute guys in the middle school.
Then I saw them gather at the mud and make little mud balls. My blind instinct began to scream at me to move but I couldn't because that damn little voice was still soothing me, telling me that they were simply making mud balls, they weren't going to throw them. They weren't going to throw them in my direction. It whispered all my secret wishes to me when I watched the boys pick up one of the balls and heave it as hard as he could at me. It splattered all over my stomach.
The second boy and the third boy and soon all of them started to throw the mud at me, laughing and giggling and having a jolly old time. I don't think I'll ever forget the way they laughed. Like they were watching a funny cartoon show or going to a circus and seeing the dancing elephants. Not the type of laughter you'd expect from their 'burn the witch' infantile actions with gobs of mud as their weapons. I think that the teachers never would have stopped them if I hadn't started screaming. I have a very high-pitched scream. One that gets your attention right away.
They found me crumpled up on the grass of the hill, mud in my eyes, in my hair, in my mouth with little clean trails down my cheeks where the tears had washed the filth away. The boys were punished with three day suspensions. That was all. Three days of sitting at home and complaining how bored they were while all the rest of the class turned and looked at me, whispering and pointing with their eyes. Reliving what they had done to me again and again with every curious glance.
That night I was lying in my bed and sweating because the air-conditioner was busted and my dad hadn't fixed it yet. I had sworn to the school counselor that I would tell my parents exactly what happened in order to convince her not to call them. I didn't tell my mom or dad anything. I didn't want to relive what had happened to me, all the while looking at their sympathetic eyes. That night I lay there and I wished that I was dead.
Finally, after picturing the faces on the boys after they learned that I had killed myself, I fell asleep. Then the fan started in my mind, my dreams, going faster than it had ever gone before. It happened like this every night. The cord would either be long or short, depending on some random variable, and the fan would start at a varying speed. I'd been having dreams like this for as long as I could remember, with the strange figure flitting back and forth in the background, there then not. Here then gone. The cord tonight was very short. In all of my dreams, I had never been fully wound up by the fan. Never been close enough for the blades to harm me. Maybe tonight it would be different.
The cord grew tight right away. It was a deep red color. Funny how I'd never noticed that before. And I was in this weird place this time. The sky was a funny yellow color, but I couldn't see a sun anywhere. I would have looked around longer, but I was jerked foreword as the fan reeled me in. I was three feet away from it. Closer than I'd ever been to it before.
My mind spun as the fan grew closer and closer to me. My dreams had never been like this before. I'd never been anywhere but a foggy room with no detail. The cord had always been gray, as had been the fan. This was different and wrong. I knew, with a sickening feeling in my gut, that if the fan blades cut me in my dream I would die in real life.
I pulled at the cord with all my strength, but it was like I had no muscles and the cord just slid harmlessly in my hands. Two feet. I could feel the wind from the fan blades on my face, my body. I looked down and I was naked. I could see the cord. It was an umbilical cord for real now, coming out of my belly button and wrapped around the fan by some sadistic dream mother.
Twelve inches away. I started screaming.
A white hand with black painted nails reached into my vision and pressed a button on the fan. The 'off' button. The fan had a freaking 'off' button! I stood, gasping at the still blades, each as sharp as a kitchen knife and twice as dangerous. I turned and looked around, finally, dizzy from shock. I had no clue where I was, but one thing I was certain of; this wasn't a dream.
A girl was standing besides me, around 18 or 19 years old, I'd guess. She had skin literally as white as snow, and heavy black eyeliner. A little hook thing was drawn in black under one eye. She was dressed all in black, too. Like she was in mourning. A sweet smile played upon her lips. She was holding an umbrella.
"Hello, Julia." She said and her voice was low and big-sister-like. The kind of voice that soothes you in the night after you wake up screaming. The kind of voice that gives you advice and laughs at all your stupid stories and is always up front about what she's feeling. I felt the corners of my mouth try and curl up, but I was too shocked to let them go all the way.
"Who are you? Thank you. Dear god, thank you so much." I was quivering at my near miss.
The girl walked over to where I was standing and held my shoulder to keep me from falling down. "Hold on a second."
She grabbed the umbilical cord at it's base, next to my belly, and there was this weird sizzling sound and suddenly the cord was off of my body. Casually she threw it down at the bottom of the fan.
"Feel better now?" She asked, looking me over. I suddenly remembered I was naked and blushed very red.
I crossed my hands over my chest and asked her softly, "Um, do you have a coat or something?"
She laughed, a rich chuckly sound. "Yeah. Here." A coat appeared from thin air and I put it on. It was a nice, black velvet feeling coat. Too big, though. Not that I was complaining.
"So." She said, hands on her hips. "What are you doing here?"
I shrugged. "I'm dreaming, I guess. Why?"
"You aren't dreaming. Not really. If you were dreaming you'd be in The Dreaming. Instead, you're in my realm."
I struggled to catch up. "Your realm? Who are you?"
"Death."
I stood still for a minute, and decided that it was all a dream. You can dream that you aren't dreaming. Hell, even characters can admit they aren't dreams themselves. Who can really tell? With this figured out, I decided to act like it was a dream after all.
I walked around, looking at the scenery around me. There were huge hills that weren't exactly hills. They had little bits and pieces of my life woven through them, like my favorite ballerina shoes when I was three poking out of the ground, or my stuffed teddy I'd slept with until last year turned into a giant statue.
"Weird..." I said, impressed at the fantastic dreamscape. I spoke like the nerd I was, pretending to be cool. "So, what am I doing in the land of death, or what have ya?"
She shrugged and twirled her umbrella around her. "I don't know. This never happens usually. The living rarely come here. Cool, huh?"
"I guess. Anyway, thanks for saving me."
She shook her head. "I didn't save you. I only helped you. There's a big difference there. Unless you do something about the fan, it'll be back. Something's drawing you to it and I don't know what."
I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. "Hey, I just thought of something. I was thinking about dying before I went to sleep. Could that have anything to do with why I'm here when I'm apparently not supposed to be here?"
"Could be. You might just be one of those special ones who can do that. I've noticed many more human females with the ability the past decade or so. Women connected to death throughout their lives."
I liked the strange death girl, I really did. I looked at her and thought for a moment and said, "So, if I'm one of those people, I could come back and visit you any time I wanted? Because I would like to, if that's okay. I like you."
She smiled at me. It was one of those real smiles, not those fake ones that the women behind the counters at drug stores give you that you see so often. "Sure you can, Julia. I'm usually really busy, but you might see me once in a while."
I smiled, too. Perhaps the first true smile I've had in a long time. I was so very happy, and the fan was off and I was free, if only for a little bit if what she said was true. She smiled back at me and I smile back at everyone and everything around me. She opened up her umbrella suddenly and then I was awake. And everything was different.
Life didn't suck anymore. I mean, sure the boys were mean and nasty and inbred freaks of nature, but that was okay. It was part of life, I guess. And the fan was gone. That was the best part of it. I hadn't realized how bad the fan was getting to me until it was gone. I guess that goes for a lot of things. We never appreciate things till we don't have them anymore, and then we realize what they meant to us. I guess the fan meant control, it meant forcing things on me. Being things I'm not meant to be. I guess. And the oddest thing was, death saved me. Or Death saved me. Capitalization or no, I felt wonderful, like I could go out and change the world.
The next night, I dreamt about the fan again and I recalled later on that she had said something about me not being saved from it. Something like that. I'm not sure anymore, now. I'm both sure and not sure about anything, inverted psychopath that I am, making sure that everything's all right. That everyone's peachy.
I see little blinks of her in my dreams, but just for a few seconds. I've never been back there to her realm, not like that. Just little flashes and her dancing, blinking in the background of my mind.
I'm no longer scared of the fan, though. I think that sometime between now and then I figured out the exact meaning of the fan. It's symbolic of how close I am to not being me. Not death, exactly, but being some shallow thing that talks about pointless shit just to make friends and who flirts with the boys who were so mean to her before. I fight the fan every night, and every night I succeed. But every night the cord gets a little closer.
Maybe the reason why I'm so careful about not hurting anyone, not stepping on bugs or spiders or anything is because if I do, they'll see her and I won't. And I'll be jealous because of that. Whatever. The fan hasn't drawn me in yet and so far, I'm still winning. I'll always win, because the prize is me. In my humble opinion, I think that I'm a prize worth fighting for.