I went home early from work yesterday and fell into fever dreams. There is that feeling of something within the head, a prowling, a shadow, with fetid breath and scaly prehensile tail curled around the spinal cord. A rumble and claws.
In the dream I was not me, and when I looked in the mirror in my dream it was not my face. It was round with big cheeks and a round chin and dark hair. I don't know the face.
I dreamt of a house with a large white room, and a single bed standing tall beneath a closed window with heavy dusty curtains. The curtains were so dusty I could feel the particles of mites and stardust and dander falling on my skin, on my face that wasn't mine.
Unable to sleep and curious about the window I sat up and pulled the curtain back. I was looking into another room, smaller and dimly lit, and there was a man in there.
Thinking to judge the worth of my skin by its worth to a member of the opposite sex, and that's not a concept I normally think but it was a thought I did think in the different-person's hazy dream reality, I looked intently at him. I weighed my chances, and considered my notion.
He was tall and thin and had short brown hair and olive skin. He had round eyes like a frog, with short thick upper eyelashes and long sparse lower lashes. As I sat and watched him, he rolled his left eye up under the eyelid, like a frog will do to moisturize its eyes. It bulged out and looked strange and he swallowed heavily before he rolled his eyeball back straight ahead, and continued staring in oblivion. Horrified, not only because one of his eyes moved independently up under the eyelid but also because I had considered making friends with this frog-man freak, I shrank from the window and lay back down.
I decided to try and sleep, so I curled sidewise on the narrow tall bed and rested my head on the only pillow that didn't smell like putrid bacon. It was a small flat pillow of rough material, and had an antique print pattern of yellow and black. I think it had ducks and chickens drawn like Audubon birds, except monochromatic. There was heavy embroidery stitch, more functional to keep the pillow's innards from moving around than for any sense of handiwork.
I slept. I had no dreams. And when I awoke inside my dream, in which I was not me, and looked in the mirror, the dark strange face that looked back at me had an impression on its cheek from the pillow. It said, "They're 22."
And then the phone rang and I was wrenched from the feverish strange dreamworld back to the sunny bed and there I sat, blinking, head pounding.
In the dream I was not me, and when I looked in the mirror in my dream it was not my face. It was round with big cheeks and a round chin and dark hair. I don't know the face.
I dreamt of a house with a large white room, and a single bed standing tall beneath a closed window with heavy dusty curtains. The curtains were so dusty I could feel the particles of mites and stardust and dander falling on my skin, on my face that wasn't mine.
Unable to sleep and curious about the window I sat up and pulled the curtain back. I was looking into another room, smaller and dimly lit, and there was a man in there.
Thinking to judge the worth of my skin by its worth to a member of the opposite sex, and that's not a concept I normally think but it was a thought I did think in the different-person's hazy dream reality, I looked intently at him. I weighed my chances, and considered my notion.
He was tall and thin and had short brown hair and olive skin. He had round eyes like a frog, with short thick upper eyelashes and long sparse lower lashes. As I sat and watched him, he rolled his left eye up under the eyelid, like a frog will do to moisturize its eyes. It bulged out and looked strange and he swallowed heavily before he rolled his eyeball back straight ahead, and continued staring in oblivion. Horrified, not only because one of his eyes moved independently up under the eyelid but also because I had considered making friends with this frog-man freak, I shrank from the window and lay back down.
I decided to try and sleep, so I curled sidewise on the narrow tall bed and rested my head on the only pillow that didn't smell like putrid bacon. It was a small flat pillow of rough material, and had an antique print pattern of yellow and black. I think it had ducks and chickens drawn like Audubon birds, except monochromatic. There was heavy embroidery stitch, more functional to keep the pillow's innards from moving around than for any sense of handiwork.
I slept. I had no dreams. And when I awoke inside my dream, in which I was not me, and looked in the mirror, the dark strange face that looked back at me had an impression on its cheek from the pillow. It said, "They're 22."
And then the phone rang and I was wrenched from the feverish strange dreamworld back to the sunny bed and there I sat, blinking, head pounding.
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