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NIGHTMARE REALITY
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As she lies unconscious, her mind works feverishly. It seems whatever is going on, the only details she can really recall are all these seemingly unrelated words and images. These clouds float past her sunny day, she divines their shape into recognizable things even though they remain only random masses of frozen water vapor. So, random electrical activity is forced to assume forms: A mouse with a long white tail caught under (or was it really in) a white plastic box, a pair of joined spiraling staircases, a can of soup that says "plain LABel: Mix well with water and serve when blinking". "That reporter is behind it all, I have to tell everybody. I need more control, but I have too much!"
She decides that since there are so few real details, that maybe she should concentrate on that aspect of it. But then she hears a noise behind her. She doesn't want her eyes to open, but they open on command. Fighting this is like trying to control a nightmare, nothing you can do but dread the next scene. Nothing you can do but pray it scares you awake like a sudden close clap of loud thunder outside your window. She is afraid to turn around, she doesn't want to see it. These thoughts drudge though her muddied mind: "I don't want to I don't want to I have to I have to I have to, fuck!"
She turns around to face her worst fear, but as soon as her eyes fall upon it's electrified red-blinking cycloptic surface she falls into a hypnotic calm. The iris turns to the blue of serenity and then morphs effortlessly into the gray of ambiguity. The clap never comes to save her, instead the rain continues to fall on the roof of her soul, continuing to keep her pacified. The TV just winks at her like a salacious man. No refunds, no returns, no exit. It's a commercial, it says one thing, but tells her another.
She falls into the chair that was not there before, and smiles the smile of the open child. It tells her about the wonderful product, and what she should be thinking today. The creepy talking pad smiles and skips over to become part of it's shiny fluffy package. There it hugs the lower end of a stuffed animal that seems to be smiling way too happily. The animal looks as if it wants a cigarette. "You don't have to go with the flow with Sangue Stop." is the tag line.
All her worries disappear, and she can feel her dreams more clearly now. She doesn't need her mommy, she doesn't need anybody. She has these products to tell her what to do, how to feel, what to be. They show her how big her breasts should be, how thin her waist needs to be, how to spend her time at home and at the store, who her man should be and how to raise her children and then how to kill them with kindness (she cannot physically kill them because that will rob them of another sucker). She is slave to the sensations they choose to give her, she gives in. No use fighting, no use for such a useless waste of otherwise useless energy. Just follow them to their idea of paradise -- let go. She felt herself float in a sea of anesthesia while clouds of smelly smoke billows above her.
No need for a physical drug -- this is so much easier for the quick and the lazy -- Kwik Fix Extrodinaire®©™ (anyone found using this name will be instantly vaporized right away!). A direct shot, no wait, no muss, no fuss, slices and dices and realizes, rearranging reality quicker than a blinking red eye. Just behind the door in her mind, which has just opened another inch, the new her looks in. This body snatcher smiles with the anticipation of a man on his honeymoon night. She smiles, and gets up and turns off the TV because she has misplaced the remote. No problem. Going to bed, she falls asleep to the blinking neon in the uncaring gray of evening through her window. She doesn't even wonder why today it seems to blink like a blood-shot eye.
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