Inside Out
"It's only a TV show, Angie."
"I have a strange foreboding about it. I can't explain… Don't go, Patrick. Please."
"My silly little woman."
He pulls her closer and gives her a quick peck on the lips. She finally surrenders and lays her head against his chest, as both of them slowly drift towards sleep.
xxx
Their blood is sticky like strawberry jam. He calls their names over and over, but they never answer.
Blink.
Angela smiles at him over the rim of her teacup when he says he's not going after all.
Charlotte looks like an angel with broken wings, she'll never fly again. Her princess nightgown is torn and stained with her own blood.
Blink.
They go to the beach together that evening, and he doesn't even bother answering his manager's calls. His little girl paddles along the seashore looking for seashells until the sun finally sinks into the ocean.
Strangers eventually remove their bodies and try to comfort him with empty words. He stares into emptiness, waiting for someone to wake him up from this nightmare at long last.
Blink.
That night Angela tells him she wants to have another child. He smiles and proceeds to show her how much he agrees with her request.
They lock him inside an empty room, white walls closing around him and he just can't breathe. He bangs his fists again and again, until the walls are smeared with his own blood.
Only then he thinks of drawing another red smiling face, like the one looming above his own bed at home.
Blink.
Charlotte pouts when they tell her she's going to have a little brother or sister. They assure her she won't have to share her dolls with her sibling, and that's enough to cheer her up at last.
She says the little one can have her old teddy bear, before drifting off in order to reassure her toys as well.
xxx
There's a woman talking to him, but he doesn't hear what she says. Reality and dreams are overlapping in his head, and he just can't tell which is which.
He's not even sure he wants to know anyway.
