Awake
I check the fridge: notice the habitual lack of food, close fridge, disappointed. Half an hour later I lower my standards: check the fridge again, notice half of a lemon and some possibly expired cream cheese, close fridge, disappointed. Another half hour passes: I find a stack of crackers stuck between the two cushions of my couch, open fridge, take the lemon and cream cheese, squeeze out the juice of the lemon and plop the yellow skin as well, seeds included, into the white container of cream cheese. Anything to possibly allow me to ignore the taste of expired cheese. Count the crackers, 1-2-3-4-5-6 crackers… That’s good for me. I finally sit back on the couch and dip the crackers into my unholy combination of fridge detritus. Cheese is supposed to make your dreams weird right? She likes weird.
On her dating profile she says so… twice? I can’t remember. Maybe I just thought her profile looked weird. *crunch, chew chew chew* God that’s disgusting. I can feel it slowly slither down my gullet; would cream cheese make good lube? Probably not, that took way too long to go down, I can already hear her screaming, “Why is it taking so long!” At least that would be the first time someone has said that to me in bed.
I can imagine Freud looking at this website: dreams.com/true, brightly displayed from his laptop. Could he be able to analyze my dream and tell me if I was doing well? If it looked like she wanted to see me in person? If she wanted me? Or would he just go on rambling about how the insecurities of modern men not being hugged enough by our mothers have led us to seek relationships in an idealized world of our own mind?
INTERJECTION!
12:45, two doorbells ring in seperate locations. Our narrator and his date open their mouths and press the shoot button. The pill comes flying through and the squirt of water follows shortly after, our narrator notices a slight lemony taste to the water this time. They then immediately collapse head-first into their beds, ready to have their first date in his dream.
Dream
Each time I meet a new woman in my dream, she appears in the form of some amorphous blob, curves on curves on curves; I call this first stage: vaguely sexual. This time we skipped straight to the fifth stage, where our sexual pulsions morph us into animals. She flies down as a fearsome hawk, opening her talons to pick up me up for her feast. I wiggle between her claws and notice that her razor-sharp talons have made me release a stream of blood. The blood covers the ground and seeps into the mountains. With every additional drop, I see the mountains turn into molehills then meadows then a slick, smooth flat surface, drenched in red. We come crashing down, covering each other’s eyes. It’s not her first time, she knows the tricks to make me feel safe.
I’ve learnt by now that the less I see of the dream, the more control I have. Whenever I close my eyes for long enough I can even become lucid, and if this statement holds true for everyone else then, in this particular occasion, we both are. I look around and, although we crashed together, she’s nowhere to be seen. “Roxane! Roxaaaaaaaaaane!” I scream, twirling like a ballerina, having my shouts echoed into the void of blood. I put myself into full pointe, adjust my tutu and leap forth into a random direction. I whisper into the landscape, “I am the monkey king” as I venture forwards, thousands of miles at a time. We haven’t said a word to each other. Our thoughts should be linked, intertwined. Why is she not in my dream?
The light goes out in the world and I can’t see shit. The red is away and black has come to stay. The floor has become an abyss, and instead of staring at me the darkness rises like tendrils, weaving itself into my feet, stopping me dead in my tracks. It’s not quicksand, it’s an abyss; it’s not a black hole, it’s an abyss. All of this is new to me. It’s exciting in a perverse way and intimate in another, somehow more perverse way. Perhaps because the abyss is so warm and inviting and, unlike a nightmare, I know it’s been created outside of my mind. I accept the abyss with open arms and realize I’m entering her dream. This new reality locks into my arms to hug me.
Her voice whispers into my ears. “This is the last moment of mutual power, of painless pleasure.” When my head is fully immersed and my eyes readjust to the sudden change in brightness, I see us; I see her body, her black clothing and, most importantly, my gimp suit.
End