N I G H T M A R E

i sometimes wonder where my irrational fear of death stems from... to be honest, i really dont know... but with dreams like last night -- i know its deep seeded and probably something ill never shake.

great.

(sorry, but there might be some pretty disturbing imagery here... you might want to skip this one... really.)

: : :

i find out that my brother (who's 6 years old...) has contracted a rare and very deadly disease and is dying an extremely slow and agonizing death. not only that, the disease is horrifying. the closest thing i can compare it to is leprosy... but somehow much more fucked up than that. i see him in the hospital... parts of him rotting away from the outside-in, hes barely conscious and on life support... a lucid dream of unbearable pain. i can barely take it. im trembling with tears.

then i wonder why im allowed into the room with him.

im told ive already contracted the disease. probably from the same source as him. im counseled that i have little time before the symptoms set it. im showed pictures of what will happen. rotting limbs. bloodless wounds eaten with puss. i want to scream. i want to kill my brother to save him. they wont let me. they tell me he'll pass in a day or two, that he knows nothing. his mind is nearly gone. they tell me they dont know where it comes from, but that its called sclera (this stays with me until i wake) and it claims 100 percent of the people who contract it.

i leave the room and wander through the hospital and find my room. there is a girl in there, only a little younger than myself. she has it too. shes already lost two of her legs at the thighs and one of her arms. otherwise she looks good... almost healthy... and i wonder if her and i will find love as we die in the room together.

no one is permitted to visit... but, somehow, im allowed to leave. but only once.

(i wake up at this point... and when i go back to sleep, the dream continues.)

im scouring hospital records to see how long the disease takes. i figure i have a couple of months until my skin starts to come away and about a year or two of rotting before i die.

i have to leave.

no one will see me. family, friends... i cant reach anyone. i wander around a town thats supposed to be mine, but i dont recognise anyone or anything. im pissed and wondering why... how... i want to wake up... i remember that... i want to wake up.

(i wake up for the second time... hoping that if i fall back asleep, this fucking dream will end.

it doesnt.)

im walking through the streets when i find the only person i wanted to see... to say good bye. i cant tell her whats happened to me. all i can do is cry. (i know her... and i dont know her. the face is familiar, but its no one i know in real life.) i tell her that im going to die. she laughs thinking im joking. i tell her im not. that this is it. its over.

she knows my tears are real.

she leaves and promises to come back.

i tell her she cant. i dont want to make her sick. this is it. its over.

shes gone.

im alone in the middle of an empty street, in an empty town.

and i have never felt more alone in all of my life. knowing that i am going to die alone, and in pain, and well before i have done anything with my sad and pathetic life.

: : :

i wake up for the third and final time.

i have to tell myself that it was a dream.

that im not going to die.

it was a goddamn dream.

but im not sure.

and i realise that ive never had a dream that insisted on continuing after ive woken so many times.

i want to call my mother to check on my brother.

but i know that would only feed my fear somehow.


. . .


i really dont know what the fuck is going on with me, but ive been having some pretty strange dreams lately. and some of them are just downright fucked up and disturbing. thank god some of them arent.