"I had a nightmare."
Fan whirring, eyes glittering where the rays of the lamp land upon salty crescents; silvery soft tears welling below flared pupils.
"What was it about?"
Dreams are honey. Honey that flows, thick and liquescent, from the hive of the mind. Calm on the exterior yet, below, a million frantic thoughts moving as one. Our waking hours are an elegant facade - not fake; more real than most things - a facade resting on a scaffold, erected by day and torn down by night. Our thoughts are worker bees, endlessly busy and so removed from these mellifluous perceptions floating serenely on the surface.
"It was about you."
Tears slide gently down the sides of her face.
Nightmares are tar. Black and viscid and vicious and raw. A rider through shadows, a noise that scratches and scrapes and screams without sound. Shapes that impose and intoxicate, nightmares are thick smoke, legs that are called and do not respond, ears that ignore every plea. Nightmares are midnight marauders that stalk darkly from mirrors, they are the shock that strikes you down when it rises up from deep within. The reflection is distorted; at first by denial, and then by fear - the sheer terror of one's self. These days of ours cling to us as cobwebs, trapped like flies where one is both hunter and prey. These days can never be left behind, never truly removed. Nightmares are the whispers of truth we stuff into our closets, hoping to forget.
"Are you okay?"
There are times when night and day become so confused that one bleeds into the other. The shift is imperceptible - at first. The descent into murder can begin with a kiss, a lover's welcome; an open door. There are times when the first hint of disaster is hidden in a hairline fracture, subtle and innocuous until the knock at the door becomes frenetic and noxious. There are times when honey turns to tar.
She is sleeping.
