I woke up at around midnight again. I'd been having trouble
sleeping. Maybe all the coffee I drank in my entire life was finally
catching up with me. But if that were true, I would've probably felt a bit
more awake. Right then it felt like I was sleepwalking. Not the firm,
solid feeling of being awake, and not the warm, relaxed release of sleep.
I was stuck somewhere in limbo, which just happened to be worse than Heaven
or Hell right now.
I growled in frustration at one thing or another and pushed myself out of bed. The bedroom of my apartment was nothing more than a wooden box painted a sickly sort of light blue with hardwood floors so old that I can feel the spaces between them with my feet. The gaps cling to well-worn grooves in the pinkish flesh. It used to hurt, but it doesn't anymore. Enough of any one thing and you start to get dulled to it all. That's just the way it is, I guess.
I also have one window in my room. Punched into the wall, a square of relief in the sticky-hot darkness of the room. I don't like to use the air conditioner. It's money so that I can put an extra cover over me while I sleep. What's the point? Anyway, the window spews a fountain of pale white light that's like a ghost's hand groping for me in the dark. I touch it, but all I feel is the cool flesh of the wind that weakly comes through the open window. Not groping for me. Not coming to take me away. There is no escape, is there?
Out the window, the world is the same dark as I left it. The moon is lonely and pale in the darkness of the night sky like a lonely child, confused, sunken deep in despair. It offers just enough light for me to see across the city, hiding the sins and horrors of the world in the shadows, where no one would probably ever find out about them. A big, glowing, pale censor. It makes the city look almost nice. That takes some talent.
And there on the hill gleamed a building, shimmering as if advertising how out of place it was amongst the looming, stolid blocky figures of the buildings around it. It gleamed gold even in the pale light, a flat, metallic gold. It was new, some sort of modern architecture. State-of-the-art, the papers said. Everyone was very excited about it. But now, it's gotten sort of dull, sort of accepted. People used to talk, it used to be almost a tourist attraction. Booths sold plastic replicas to walking wallets who weren't old enough to know useless junk when they saw it. To me, it just looked like a giant, golden iron, squatting uselessly on the hill that the city crowded around.
The Medical Mechanica building. There was something funny to that. A squatting golden iron on the top of the hill above the city. As I watched it out my window, I secretly hoped it would tip and start sliding, flattening the city and knocking down buildings as it went. And then the buildings would knock down others. Like dominos. In a few short seconds, the city would be rubble. And all that would be left was that gleaming golden iron building sitting innocently amidst the destruction. The ruins that were a city. It's a neat dream, at least.
"I need to get back to sleep." I say to the city, which only hums with electricity, ignoring me and my words as if neither of us existed. We might as well not. I took my words with me to bed. We comforted ourselves in sleep, with a small, secret hope that neither of us would wake up.
I had a strange dream that night. I don't remember a lot of it. That's the way with dreams. And only with dreams. Stories you can remember, but dreams you can't. As if your mind wants them to be kept a secret, wants to keep them to itself. Anyway. I remember seeing the city, at night. And I remember seeing dawn start spreading swiftly across the sky, fingers like almost blood-red lightning bolts across the night. And I remember these fingers shifted and melded until it looked like they formed solid masses, like blood-red wings, that cut the night and dyed the world red. And slowly, the red grew brighter and brighter until my eyes seemed glazed by a glowing coat of blood. And then everything swirled together, red-tinged buildings, the sky, the wings, into a red tornado that tore my dream away from me and left me with blackness.
When I woke up, I was covered in sweat. My clothes stuck to my lanky, thin body, melding like flesh onto me. And when I closed my eyes, all I could see was an odd symbol, like a circle with three sets of wings, appearing everywhere I looked as though it were a light I had stared at too long. And echoing in my ears was the calm, rumbling sound of some baseline I couldn't recognize played on an invisible bass moving farther and farther into the distance.
"Just a dream." I might have mumbled it, I'm not sure. Either way, I got up like I did every morning and peeling my clothing away, shedding it and emerging pale and naked into the sickly, polluted light that dripping through the window. The cool breath of the wind sucked the sweat from my body and I watched as the gleam faded from my skin. Back to normal.
I growled in frustration at one thing or another and pushed myself out of bed. The bedroom of my apartment was nothing more than a wooden box painted a sickly sort of light blue with hardwood floors so old that I can feel the spaces between them with my feet. The gaps cling to well-worn grooves in the pinkish flesh. It used to hurt, but it doesn't anymore. Enough of any one thing and you start to get dulled to it all. That's just the way it is, I guess.
I also have one window in my room. Punched into the wall, a square of relief in the sticky-hot darkness of the room. I don't like to use the air conditioner. It's money so that I can put an extra cover over me while I sleep. What's the point? Anyway, the window spews a fountain of pale white light that's like a ghost's hand groping for me in the dark. I touch it, but all I feel is the cool flesh of the wind that weakly comes through the open window. Not groping for me. Not coming to take me away. There is no escape, is there?
Out the window, the world is the same dark as I left it. The moon is lonely and pale in the darkness of the night sky like a lonely child, confused, sunken deep in despair. It offers just enough light for me to see across the city, hiding the sins and horrors of the world in the shadows, where no one would probably ever find out about them. A big, glowing, pale censor. It makes the city look almost nice. That takes some talent.
And there on the hill gleamed a building, shimmering as if advertising how out of place it was amongst the looming, stolid blocky figures of the buildings around it. It gleamed gold even in the pale light, a flat, metallic gold. It was new, some sort of modern architecture. State-of-the-art, the papers said. Everyone was very excited about it. But now, it's gotten sort of dull, sort of accepted. People used to talk, it used to be almost a tourist attraction. Booths sold plastic replicas to walking wallets who weren't old enough to know useless junk when they saw it. To me, it just looked like a giant, golden iron, squatting uselessly on the hill that the city crowded around.
The Medical Mechanica building. There was something funny to that. A squatting golden iron on the top of the hill above the city. As I watched it out my window, I secretly hoped it would tip and start sliding, flattening the city and knocking down buildings as it went. And then the buildings would knock down others. Like dominos. In a few short seconds, the city would be rubble. And all that would be left was that gleaming golden iron building sitting innocently amidst the destruction. The ruins that were a city. It's a neat dream, at least.
"I need to get back to sleep." I say to the city, which only hums with electricity, ignoring me and my words as if neither of us existed. We might as well not. I took my words with me to bed. We comforted ourselves in sleep, with a small, secret hope that neither of us would wake up.
I had a strange dream that night. I don't remember a lot of it. That's the way with dreams. And only with dreams. Stories you can remember, but dreams you can't. As if your mind wants them to be kept a secret, wants to keep them to itself. Anyway. I remember seeing the city, at night. And I remember seeing dawn start spreading swiftly across the sky, fingers like almost blood-red lightning bolts across the night. And I remember these fingers shifted and melded until it looked like they formed solid masses, like blood-red wings, that cut the night and dyed the world red. And slowly, the red grew brighter and brighter until my eyes seemed glazed by a glowing coat of blood. And then everything swirled together, red-tinged buildings, the sky, the wings, into a red tornado that tore my dream away from me and left me with blackness.
When I woke up, I was covered in sweat. My clothes stuck to my lanky, thin body, melding like flesh onto me. And when I closed my eyes, all I could see was an odd symbol, like a circle with three sets of wings, appearing everywhere I looked as though it were a light I had stared at too long. And echoing in my ears was the calm, rumbling sound of some baseline I couldn't recognize played on an invisible bass moving farther and farther into the distance.
"Just a dream." I might have mumbled it, I'm not sure. Either way, I got up like I did every morning and peeling my clothing away, shedding it and emerging pale and naked into the sickly, polluted light that dripping through the window. The cool breath of the wind sucked the sweat from my body and I watched as the gleam faded from my skin. Back to normal.
