Rude Wakening

I awoke with a start; feeling disoriented, from a dream, but could not remember what it was, which is unusual for me. Sometimes when I dream and wake I can go back and restart my dream and it carries on till I am ready to arouse and analyze it.

A sound from next door sharpened my senses. I heard a soft moan coming through the wall. My first thought was that she had company stay over. Then came a low thumping and the moaning grew louder. Yes, it sounded like a good time was happening.

I always slept with my windows open with a lock on each one. The curtains did not move and I felt clammy all over my body and the day had only started. Her moans kept seeping through the wall.  The heat was blistering already, far too early for me to open my sliding door and interrupt my neighbour and her friend.

I was now wide-awake, needed to shower. I turned the water on full to cold, standing with the stream pulsing down my body and started to come alive with goose bumps. Turning off the water I could still hear the banging coming from next door, it was getting louder.

The moaning persisted, but sounded more like a whimper now. I could hear someone moving about and the shower go on. A small noise again, I was getting annoyed and went out on the patio and peeked through a crack in her drapes.

I saw a body lying with blood all over and it was my neighbour lying there with her back to my wall hitting it with her foot. She was trying to get my attention.

Someone who did this was still there and in the shower. I ran back to call the police before I returned to help her. She looked up and her terrified eyes went towards the bathroom door. I quickly helped her up and we slipped out the door as I heard the shower go off.

She was bleeding from her mouth and had cuts all over her body. I hoped we were not leaving a trail of blood. Inside my place, we heard shouting and swearing. I helped her to my bed. We were both shaking with fear. I could hear sirens a distance away.

Then he was at my door banging, swearing and calling her name. A crash as the window smashed into pieces. I reached for my bedside drawer as he came pummeling through the window with his knife and a contorted grin on his face. I grabbed my gun from the drawer.  

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

His smile disappeared as I pulled the trigger.

Are we ever safe?

I found myself in a prison cell with five other women. They looked so hard I thought I would never last through the night alive. They all stared at me as if I was a gourmet dinner for one and they were not willing to share.

The lights had dimmed since I arrived; the long night was just beginning.

A guard with his belly hanging over his belt wandered down the narrow aisle, a smirk on his face, softly whistling between his teeth. He stopped to crack a joke at the blonde-haired women who must have weighed over two hundred pounds and was at least six feet tall. She smiled at the guard; her two front teeth were missing. She scowled over in my direction.

Another dark haired man-women, I was not sure which, started to sing in a deep voice, a love song I remembered Tom Jones singing years ago.

Two of the skinny women swayed to their imagined beat. I could tell they where high on something. The fifth women, who had a scar running down her face from her eye to her chin, said nothing, just watched me from the corner of the room, rolling her eyes towards me. She inched over in my direction clucking her tongue and clenching her hands in frightening tight fists.

I would not be sleeping to-night, wondering when my lawyer would arrive. This was one huge mistake. I had not done anything wrong. I was told everyone says the same thing when arriving in this god-awful place.

Chanting, screams and crying were everywhere through the halls, the echoing sound of metal doors clanked as I could hear that food was coming. Catcalls howled about the slop that was being delivered. I could feel my fear and started to shake. The huge toothless Amazon moved closer and put her hand over my mouth.

The scream was coming from me as I awoke, not from a dream but a nightmare.

My unconscious mind

I went to bed early, fell asleep when my head hit the pillow and plunged into a dream sleep of a warm place.  

        

My subconscious mind heard a click, and I wondered what the noise was? My body tightened as I felt a slight breeze over my face.

I slowly moved my eyes towards the sliding door, not showing my face above the covers. Then a small creak as the door slid opened another crack, then nothing. I waited.

Someone was on my patio waiting very quietly to make sure I was still sleeping. Was my imagination playing mind tricks or did I see a dark shape move. I was wide-awake now and started to tremble.

My hand inched towards my bedside drawer. I faked a snore to cover my movement to the drawer. Another scrape as the door slid opened further allowing the breeze to ruffle the curtain. I felt for my gun and I slowly picked it up and clicked the safety off.

Whoever was there must have heard me as the door burst open with a crash and a tall dark movement was coming straight at me. I could now hear his breathing, My instincts took over.Taking aim at the dark figure who was just about upon me, so close I could smell his rancid breath. I pulled the trigger. 

The bang woke me up. Was it a car backfiring out on the street? Or was it a gun shot?

Are dreams the truth?

I dream most nights, now I have started dreaming of my old relatives who have been gone for years, another as recently as a year ago.

I look down, see a rushing steam along the cliffs edge, and wonder if I drive over the edge will I be dead before I hit water. As I round the corner, I see a small village that looks deserted at first glance. I near, and make out a face I recognize and wonder if I am seeing a mirage of my cousin.

 

His hair was long and unkempt. He wore a robe, the belt tied tightly around his waist. My first thought was he looked lost. As I stopped the car, he bent down to the window and thanked me for coming.

He took my hand as I got out and led me to an open building that looked like an old barn with no doors. There were pieces of furniture spread around, a bed at the side, a chair with glasses on a table with loads of newspaper spread over the floor. The place looked so cold. Someone was living here. My cousin realized I had asked him who, he told me it was my uncle who had died two days earlier, and they had buried him under his favorite tree outback.

 He wanted me to meet his friends who lived two lanes over and he just started to walk and tell me how they had come to live in this old broken down deserted village a few years ago. None of the buildings had doors but had fires burning in the middle of the dirt floors.

 We came upon three people sitting at a table ready to eat a meal, a man who I thought at first was a women started to unwrap a bag of food. I was introduced and offered some by another long haired man whose eyes were so dark they looked black. I knew at once this was the only food they would see for sometime and they had been willing to share with me. My cousin talked in a low voice and explained that I had come to pay my respects to his Dad and he thought I must have felt my uncles passing through his spirit.

We wandered through the village and he told me stories of my uncle being so happy here. They caught fish and game and traded with others for what they needed to survive, taking small jobs in the town ten miles away for their liquor that they both needed to keep warm inside, I was told.

 Are dreams a starting or ending point?  Or a fragmentation of your mind?