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NIGHTMARE REALITY
* 3 *
Walking to the bathroom, going to the toilet, standing and going. Letting it go. The poison falls out, it's purpose fulfilled. Rub sand into instead of out of tired sleepy eye in the morning, end, shake, pull pants up, close lid, push lever, stumble to mirror to shave stubble. Smile in mirror simply to show teeth, lean over to wash sand outta red eyes made redder, look in mirror again, brush hair with hand,
STOP!
Stare wide eyed, shake head, squeeze eyes shut, rub eyes hard, look again, no it can't be it can't be it can't be but IT IS! The face in the mirror is not hers, it is the face of her lover. She tried to remember what happened last night. But he cannot remember.
He reaches under his shirt, hoping to feel the globes of flesh, but only feels hanging muscle. Why is it that he wants to feel breasts when just before she wanted them to be felt by who he is now. What the Govex had he been drinking last night!
Wait! If he is now him, maybe she is still, still...His heart races with the possibility as he runs back into the bedroom. He sees a lump in the bed and runs over to it, it must be her! He pulls back the covers and sees, and sees...
The portable TV he had fallen asleep with last night. It had been on a timer that was broken, and now he never knew how much time it had before it turned off. TV becomes a lot more important to you when you have no idea how long it will stay on.
Right now the screen is black. He tries to revive it, but it doesn't come on for him. It stays cold in his hands like...like...oh god. Like her, like Shade!
He would have fallen to the bed with weak knees if he was not already on the bed. His heart jumps from it's prior race to a slow slumping pace. His quickened breath now stops dead in his chest. His heavy action of fear now falls like a babbling tower into his heart to morph into utter disappointment mingled with despair and a complete loss of hope. With lead in his head collecting in his chin, he can not stop himself from remembering what happened, in such a way that he knew this wasn't the real way, it was good enough (er, bad enough) not to matter -- it might as well have happened this way.
He had been watching the funny thing on the TV, before the timer had mysteriously broken, when he got the call. He still laughed as the person on the other line babbled on. That is, until it was no longer babble.
"Mr. Frenzie, didn't you hear what I just said?"
"Huh? No, hahahaha, that's so true! Sorry, I was watching this thing on the TV and"
"Well, mute it, I have something important to tell you."
"Sorry, now, what would you like to tell me."
"I talked to the parents of Miss Raive's, and they (er, her father) told me that you were her boyfriend."
He thought about correcting him, but for some reason now he wasn't sure if they had ever married or not. He wanted to be married to her, so he decided he just might be after all. Well, she had said yes, and they were to be married tomorrow. Yeah, that sounded perfect. He was about to come up with some really clever reply, like asking him if her father had sent him, as a hit man, to kill him for stealing his precious daughter away from them or to stop him from saving the world (whatever that meant), but before this thought could fully formulate, the voice spoke again.
"I'm sorry to tell you that your fiancée is dead."
His red-shot eyes blink, he gives that quick "huh" sound we all give when something sounds incredibly incredulous. He decides he will ignore this man, and unmute the TV, but the TV won't even turn on. It won't come on, it's, it's deh--er, off. Timer stopped. Time stops. Out of time, he felt half a world away. He feels low. How can you describe a feeling like this except by calling it low? His heart feels sour and slow and low. His eyes feel like they are sprouting hot water and his lids are hung low. Gravity seems to pull stronger at his body. Low, that's it. Then Time lurches forward again, almost giving him whiplash.
"Um, well, uh. You see, I, er. My TV is dead--broken! And, well, do you know the name of a good TV repair ma-person. Must be P.C., heh-heh."
"Yes, of course sir." Dave was really a nice guy, even though his name was really Brack. He thought Brack sounded too harsh, especially since you needed a healthy amount of mucous in your throat even to properly say it. He had always wanted to be somebody his name wasn't. He had once worked with Alzheimer's patients, and knew that sometimes it was best to just let them live their fantasy rather than try to force the hidden truth from them. The truth was being slowly erased from their minds to be replaced with a new reality. It seemed to make them happier, gave them less stress, if you just helped them accept this new reality instead of forcing them to accept a reality that was no longer accessible to them. Sometimes he wished he could be similarly afflicted so that he could ignore the harsh reality that crowded him like a too-full elevator going down from the top of an infinitely tall building (taller than the twin towers of the WTC placed one on top of the other) at really too great a speed to be even remotely comforting. He felt he was living within a really long run-on sentence written by an amateur writer trying to experiment but failing miserably in the attempt and ends up being more annoying and confusing than anyone has even the remotest right to be. This is why he said this next thing to Drew: "Yes, I know the name of a great TV repairman: me! So, why don't you come down to where I am and I can look at it for you. Perhaps I can stop the transmission, er I mean, START it up again."
And like a little child, Drew answers "Can I bring my TV with me, too?"
"Sure. Bring in whatever you want." He didn't talk down to him like the other doctors did. His own grandfather had something akin to Alzheimer's, so he knew how to be compassionate. Watching his grandfather fall into that pit like an ant sliding helplessly down the sand cone of the waiting ant lion's lair was hard. So painful to watch, he wished he could reach down and pull him out, but that was impossible.
It sometimes shoved him awake in the middle of the night when he envisioned himself staring into a large pit of sand. Therein was a giant ant lion with the head of his grandfather, the rope he had flung to him was cut instead of caught by his grandpa's mandibles. Still his grandpa kept yelling "help me, help me, whoever I am!" It drilled into his head like--oh, mere words are too weak to describe the extreme horror of it all. Meanwhile he could see the grandpaNTLION patiently waiting for it's dinner. He looks at the gun that has suddenly materialized in his hand. No question, just a sly smile.
He aims and fires at the monster, but the bullets just fall into his open mouth as it laughs unharmed. So, he takes aim for his grandfather and fires, for suddenly they are together but separate, like this reality and the thing that creates it (whatever that means). His aim is true. But it is not now when he is shot out of sleep like a cannon. It is when he feels himself starting to also slide down slowly towards the unaffected, but a little less hungry, monster. He jumps out of that other dimension when the gun enters his ear, and he hears the last thing he will ever hear. He screams when he realizes that there was a smile on his face right before the bullet is let loose.
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