It's dark, and I'm running. I don't know what's behind me, only that if it catches me, I'm going to wish I were dead. Terrified, I pick up the pace, trying to lift off from the ground, but the oppressive atmosphere seems to be holding me down. A tree root reaches up and snags my ankle, tripping me. I go down hard, smacking my face on the packed dirt of the path, and I hear a familiar laugh behind me. Turning, I realize it's not a monster. It's him, not someone I have to fear. I sit up and reach out, sobbing with relief as he wraps his arms around me, telling me it's all right now. He's not going to let anyone take me. I only have a moment to feel safe before he sinks his teeth into my throat, and I realize the mistake I've made.
I'm jolted out of the nightmare, waking in my room, tucked under the covers and surrounded by darkness. Sitting up, I look at my alarm clock. It's past time to get up. I'm going to be late, and everyone will be mad. I jump out of bad and dig for my clothing, intending to drag it all on at top speed. I hear a noise behind me as I grab for things. Turning, I see him standing in the doorway. He asks what I'm doing, reminds me what day it is, and I feel silly for panicking. I don't have to be anywhere. It's tomorrow that I have to get up early. He crosses the room quickly, pulling me into a gentle hug, telling me he came in because it sounded like I was crying in my sleep.
As I hesitantly tell him the nightmare, he responds with soft kisses to my forehead and words of comfort and reassurance, that he would never let anything hurt me. When I finish talking, he kisses me deeply, taking away the last vestiges of the night's terror. Feeling better, I lay my head on his shoulder, briefly opening my eyes as the sun starts to come up. He's there, standing in the doorway, shock and hurt on his face as he watches me holding onto someone else.
I turn toward the monster in my arms. It's laughing. I shove, then push energy into my hands, jolting it over and over until it's burnt to a crisp, nearly blinded by tears of shame and horror at the realization of what I've been kissing crashes over me. I turn to run to him, but he turns away from me and begins to walk away, shoulders slumped, sadness in the voice that floats back to me, "If you ever really loved me, you'd have known the difference." I run after him, but by the time I reach the doorway, he's gone.
In his place is the monster I was just attacking. I turn and look, and there on the floor in my room is my love, crumpled in a heap, his final pain still showing in his dying eyes. My shoulder is clutched in a huge hand. I feel myself spun around by the force of it, to face my attacker. The monster draws back and punches me hard in the chest.
I woke from this with pain in my chest, and palpitations like I haven't suffered in years. I have an irregular heartbeat, but it's been determined that it's non-life threatening. It doesn't usually hurt.
For several moments, I could hardly breathe as my chest alternately pounded and squeezed. I focused my mind on it slowing down, slowly forcing one breath at a time using a breathing technique that is normally for singing, pulling the air in with my belly instead of my shoulders because I couldn't get my chest to expand.
Finally, the feeling passed, and everything settled, but that was really scary. I probably should go to the doctor, but the last time this happened (and it has been a few years,) they couldn't find the cause, and I have no insurance, so I'm not going to be able to afford it.
Anyway, the pain is gone, and now all that's left is the guilt of having not been able to distinguish which character in the dream was whom. I can't seem to shake that.
Oh, and for the record... I don't even have an alarm clock. When I need an alarm, I use my phone.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Just a dream
I can't even describe this one. I have the words, just not the fortitude, or the heart. I came out of it with this. This is all I can do.
EDGE
Baleful Craving
Echoing, pilfering
Wanton entreaty
Softened screaming
Heavy whisper
Nudging, edging
Trudging, hedging
Pushing, pulling
Rending, Seething
Exposed, unguarded
Dropping, falling
Down and away
Rattling on
Settling in
Infinitely bound
Unheeded, unheard
Unnoticed, unwanted
Unseen, unclaimed
Unclean, undone
EDGE
Baleful Craving
Echoing, pilfering
Wanton entreaty
Softened screaming
Heavy whisper
Nudging, edging
Trudging, hedging
Pushing, pulling
Rending, Seething
Exposed, unguarded
Dropping, falling
Down and away
Rattling on
Settling in
Infinitely bound
Unheeded, unheard
Unnoticed, unwanted
Unseen, unclaimed
Unclean, undone
The sun will show no mercy
I feel watched, but not immediately threatened.
Slowly and carefully, I take inventory of myself, focusing first on my own spirit and my energy, looking for anything that doesn't belong. I find the marker again, but aside from that, there is nothing, only me. I turn my focus to the physical.
I feel the hard mat under my back, pillow of leaves under my head. The blanket is flat, pulled up to my throat, tucked up under my chin. I'm still half-sitting, half-supine, with my hands flat by my sides. The pain is gone. The numbness is gone, too. There is no discomfort.
In my right hand is a small object. Under the blanket, concealed by my resting form, I turn it over in my hand, testing it with my fingertips. What am I holding? It's cold... round, but not solid, thin on one side, becoming thicker as I feel around it, then thinner again; a ring. I focus attention on it, keeping just a little behind to keep my face expressionless, my breathing normal. I reach inside the smooth, cold metal, and the little stone set into it, to feel the ring's energy.
There is warmth here, familiarity. In my mind's eye, I can see it's form; cut amethyst set in a slender, delicate sliver circle. I remember this ring. A host of emotions slam through me as the memory eclipses everything.
"What's this for?" I ask, holding the ring in the palm of my hand. Instead of answering, she picks it up and draws my fingers apart, sliding the ring on next to my wedding band. It doesn't fit, falls right off, and she gives me the most melodramatic sad face. It tears my heart out, but at the suddenness of it, I have to stifle a giggle.
I pick it up, put it on my middle finger. "Is this ok?" I'm rewarded with a nod. I ask again, "But what is it for?" It's not a gift giving occasion. Is this the commitment she's been wavering on?
She smiles an affectionate, but half-troubled smile, and answers, "For now."
The moment, so sweet when it happened, is a hard blow to my heart now. Awash in a sea of conflicting impulses, I fight just to breathe at all. The craving that hits me brings with it stabbing pangs of regret and a deep, dragging concern. Why the hell did I bring this with me? As I struggle to maintain control, my mind touches on another scene, the moment when I realized that the monster had put on her form to trick me. My heart protests... you had no right. Who would be next? My friends? My Husband?
My son? As the thought crosses my mind, I know that he would. The monster will use anything to twist me into something he can use.
The present pain is joined by a conflagration of heady wrath, and I realize why I need this ring. I seize on the emotion, feeling it try to expand, blaze wild, and erupt. This is mine. My memories, my rage, my struggle. I have fought this battle. I know all of the steps. In a second, I'm holding within myself a hot ball of righteous indignation, not blind rage. The feeling is bright, white-hot, and pure, fueled not by my hatred and fear of him, but the almost territorial devotion I feel for my loved ones. And I still feel watched.
The monster is waiting.
I open my eyes to see him staring at me from across the room. I failed to control my face, my breathing. He isn't stepping forward.
Instead, I feel a blanket of dank, bleak energy rising across me, poking and prodding at my presence. Light pressure grazes above my forehead, lingers and pokes, then falls between my eyes and lingers there and prods, followed by my throat, right above the thyroid. I feel the touch fall to my heart, searching, as the monster's jaw sets, his eyes narrow, and his ears stand straight up. The energy rolls toward my belly, and that indignation rises, bringing with it the impulse to administer a hard slap. I push the impulse forward, feeling my will strike a blow, and the pressure stops.
I sit up, push the blanket off of me, turn to let my feet hit the floor, rest my elbows on my knees, watch, and wait. The more I look at him, the hotter that ball becomes, melting into a pool of liquid outrage, but a calm settles over my consciousness. I've been here before, not with him, not in this way, but I've been here. This is my charge.
We sit like that for several moments; I, relaxing on the edge of the bed, and he, studying me warily. He knows I've cleared myself of his poison, but I haven't expelled the marker. I know that he's trying to size me up, figure out what I'm doing and how capable I might actually be of doing it. He's probably also confused, because I haven't put up a shield.
Finally, I decide there's been enough waiting, and ask why he let me build my strength back up, "...and don't tell me you still 'want through,' because that's bullshit. You could have taken that while I was down. What are you really after?"
He sits down with a slightly surprised, suspicious look on his face. I feel that prodding at my belly again, and I shove it away with another slap. "Mitts off. It's not there. If you want it back, look behind me. Are you gonna answer my question, or not?"
This time, the surprise isn't so slight. He shoots forward, moving almost faster than I can see. One second, he's sitting on the floor a few yards away from me, and the next, he's to my right, reaching behind me, poking at the mat with his fingers. I resist the impulse to move away. I'll not give him any ground, and besides, it could be worse. At least he isn't groping my chakras any more.
Finding the residue of his attitude soaked into the mat, he falls back into that sitting position, bemused, muttering something I don't understand, then says something to me about not realizing I was that sentient.
Finally, he answers my question. He struggles to describe some of the concepts, but gets across to me that it's rare for him to encounter someone who carries his favorite flavor of torment, who isn't either insensitive to anything beyond physical consciousness, entirely self-destructive, or a one-time producer. Most are all three. He can use them for a while, but they get used up. They don't replenish, or they damage themselves to death, and then he can't find them any more.
The callousness of his description pisses me off, my heart going out to his previous victims, but I keep myself calm, tell myself not to lose sight of what I have to do. I have to know what kind of mindset I'm dealing with. I ask, "What has that got to do with me?"
He answers, "You're the rarity."
My stomach turns. I think I know where this is going. The molten pool inside me boils. I keep my face neutral and watch him.
He frowns. "But you're a stubborn (gibberish). I can dominate you enough to take what I need, but not enough to take what I want. Your friends are going to protect you to death again, and I'll have to look for you again." It's almost as if he's thinking out loud instead of talking to me.
He looks up with eyes as red as blood, leans forward, says my Name with striking gravity, and tells me, "This is the covenant I offer. I will see you protected from my kind, and any other. I will educate you beyond the knowledge of your peers, and provide you with material wealth. I will not dominate your will. In return, you agree to completely surrender your torment to me upon demand, and to admit my marker, that others know not to trespass, and you will remember to yield."
For one dimwitted moment, I feel horribly threatened by his posture and the glow in his eyes, especially combined with that gravelly, dragging voice. I want to crawl backward, hide on the other side of the bed from whatever this thing is, that is leaning into my face. Then, it dawns on me. He wants me to agree to be used as livestock, wear his mark of ownership, and periodically feed him the most tremendous challenge of my being, as if everything I've invested in refining myself were worthless. Oh, HELL NO. My control is tenuous at this point. It's ready, and it's going to blow if I don't make a move.
"What do I have to do?" I beat back the fear and disgust, focus on my outrage and my goal. I bring back the image of the moment when she gave me the ring, permit the pain of knowing where it is now to assail my heart, and draw tears. It has to look real. He has to think it's what I want.
"Be still."
The monster pretends to care. I can see through the charade, but he in his eagerness, he isn't even trying to look through mine. He pulls himself to his knees before me, facing me at eye level, arranges his face in a terrible mockery of compassion that could only fool someone who didn't want to know any better. Behind it is a ghastly, slavish voracity that I'm sure he doesn't know I can see. It takes every ounce of my will to maintain the facade when he takes my hands. My inner self cringes away, revolted, horrified, and enraged.
Keeping eye contact, he says, "You don't have to fight any more." What a pro... I am so disgusted. He doesn't know much about human women. I sniff, hiccup, and look as pitiful as I can, holding that eye contact.
"Do you have to use that... thing... on me?" I don't have to act for this part. That aversion is totally real.
"Not if you don't resist." One hand moves up to my face. I have to struggle to stifle the urge to vomit, or to fight, holding that blistering inner fire in check for the right moment. "Be still. I'm not going to hurt you." His face is a mask of false concern, the stark craving barely hidden behind contrived sympathy. The act is so practiced. How many people has he consumed? At that thought, the awareness of being in the grasp of a soulless predator threatens to freeze me. My blood is like ice, but I hold on.
Suddenly, I'm wrapped in a many-armed embrace. His face is beside mine, his body pressed against me. I didn't even see him move. I hear, "Hold on," and my reflex forces me to do just that, as the world falls out from under me. There's a pull on my mind, searching for a connection. Jagged claws and cold fingertips graze my cheek, and he closes the gap. At that moment, I release not the sick, impotent rage he's looking for, not my lifelong onus, but the blinding, searing light I've built up inside. It erupts from me with a deafening shriek. I give it a massive shove, feel it pouring out of me, striking home, expelling the marker and lighting up the monster's insides.
Shock registers in his eyes as he chokes on the barrage of righteous anger. He tries to pull out of the embrace, but I'm not giving up. I grab a hand full of his filthy, matted hair, and hold him up to the assault. My voice is joined by a howl of agony as my attack rages through his system, burning him from the inside out. The red in his eyes fades, replaced by brilliant light. He pounds my back with his fists, kicks and squirms, struggling to escape from my grip. The molten, bubbling anger continues to erupt, flowing through the connection he chose to make. I feel him shaking, and I push again. The howl rises from that low, guttural tone to an animalistic scream, and I can actually feel heat emitting from his chest.
His hands stop beating on me. His arms drop, hanging limply at his sides. I release the hand full of hair, and his head rocks back, exposing his throat. His eyes are totally expressionless. The last of my shriek dies down. The energy stops flowing. I can feel the mat beneath me, but it's soft now, as if it's not completely formed. I lower him to the floor, laying him on his back, meaning to examine him carefully.
Before I can, there's a loud crackling noise, and fissures begin to appear all over his skin. I flee to the doorway, fearing an explosion, but instead, the body collapses onto the floor. I go back for a closer look, but there's nothing recognizable left, just clumps of what appears to be gray dirt on the floor. Even the clothing is gone.
I look down at the dust, as cracks spread across the floor toward the walls, and the bed collapses in on itself. That's all he is now? That's the scary monster? That's nothing. I kick at the dirt on the floor.
"I told you not to touch me."
I turn around and walk out the door...
...and find myself waking.
Picked on as a child, dumped on as an adult, kicked aside, smacked around, a person can only take so much. I always let it go, suck it up, and drive on, until it gets to something that I can't tolerate. Before I learned control, this is where the meltdown would happen, with uncontrolled verbal storms raging indiscriminately out of the furthest place from my true heart, lashing out at whoever happened to be closest, cutting deep, leaving other people's fragile psyches burned, scarred, and broken. Even the people I love.
Especially the people I love.
Nothing in my life has ever hurt me more than looking at the damage I've done to others. I can't even pretend it's not my fault, because I have this clingy, telescopic memory that focuses on things like that, gets a grip on them, and holds them up to me long after my victims have worked past the incident and moved on. I call the effect my overactive guilt gland.
Years of hard work have gone into the battle with my disposition. It took me twenty years just to realize I couldn't get rid of my temper. It isn't going to go away; it's part of what I am. It's not that I'm charged with overcoming the existence of it; I'm responsible for refining and controlling it, so that it doesn't shape who I am. And it took another decade to get a shaky handle on that. It's been nearly a fourth decade since it clicked inside me, the ability to detach myself from the emotional experience, and act outside of it, separating my tone from my timbre, so to speak. Just because it's loud, doesn't mean I have to be obnoxious.
I've been practicing that control the whole time, and I still slip up on occasion, but I've mostly gotten to a level at which I can let the emotion be the motivational fuel that pushes me to solve a conflict, without letting it be the hand that shapes the method I choose to address that. Only a true fool would ask me to give up now.
Slowly and carefully, I take inventory of myself, focusing first on my own spirit and my energy, looking for anything that doesn't belong. I find the marker again, but aside from that, there is nothing, only me. I turn my focus to the physical.
I feel the hard mat under my back, pillow of leaves under my head. The blanket is flat, pulled up to my throat, tucked up under my chin. I'm still half-sitting, half-supine, with my hands flat by my sides. The pain is gone. The numbness is gone, too. There is no discomfort.
In my right hand is a small object. Under the blanket, concealed by my resting form, I turn it over in my hand, testing it with my fingertips. What am I holding? It's cold... round, but not solid, thin on one side, becoming thicker as I feel around it, then thinner again; a ring. I focus attention on it, keeping just a little behind to keep my face expressionless, my breathing normal. I reach inside the smooth, cold metal, and the little stone set into it, to feel the ring's energy.
There is warmth here, familiarity. In my mind's eye, I can see it's form; cut amethyst set in a slender, delicate sliver circle. I remember this ring. A host of emotions slam through me as the memory eclipses everything.
"What's this for?" I ask, holding the ring in the palm of my hand. Instead of answering, she picks it up and draws my fingers apart, sliding the ring on next to my wedding band. It doesn't fit, falls right off, and she gives me the most melodramatic sad face. It tears my heart out, but at the suddenness of it, I have to stifle a giggle.
I pick it up, put it on my middle finger. "Is this ok?" I'm rewarded with a nod. I ask again, "But what is it for?" It's not a gift giving occasion. Is this the commitment she's been wavering on?
She smiles an affectionate, but half-troubled smile, and answers, "For now."
The moment, so sweet when it happened, is a hard blow to my heart now. Awash in a sea of conflicting impulses, I fight just to breathe at all. The craving that hits me brings with it stabbing pangs of regret and a deep, dragging concern. Why the hell did I bring this with me? As I struggle to maintain control, my mind touches on another scene, the moment when I realized that the monster had put on her form to trick me. My heart protests... you had no right. Who would be next? My friends? My Husband?
My son? As the thought crosses my mind, I know that he would. The monster will use anything to twist me into something he can use.
The present pain is joined by a conflagration of heady wrath, and I realize why I need this ring. I seize on the emotion, feeling it try to expand, blaze wild, and erupt. This is mine. My memories, my rage, my struggle. I have fought this battle. I know all of the steps. In a second, I'm holding within myself a hot ball of righteous indignation, not blind rage. The feeling is bright, white-hot, and pure, fueled not by my hatred and fear of him, but the almost territorial devotion I feel for my loved ones. And I still feel watched.
The monster is waiting.
I open my eyes to see him staring at me from across the room. I failed to control my face, my breathing. He isn't stepping forward.
Instead, I feel a blanket of dank, bleak energy rising across me, poking and prodding at my presence. Light pressure grazes above my forehead, lingers and pokes, then falls between my eyes and lingers there and prods, followed by my throat, right above the thyroid. I feel the touch fall to my heart, searching, as the monster's jaw sets, his eyes narrow, and his ears stand straight up. The energy rolls toward my belly, and that indignation rises, bringing with it the impulse to administer a hard slap. I push the impulse forward, feeling my will strike a blow, and the pressure stops.
I sit up, push the blanket off of me, turn to let my feet hit the floor, rest my elbows on my knees, watch, and wait. The more I look at him, the hotter that ball becomes, melting into a pool of liquid outrage, but a calm settles over my consciousness. I've been here before, not with him, not in this way, but I've been here. This is my charge.
We sit like that for several moments; I, relaxing on the edge of the bed, and he, studying me warily. He knows I've cleared myself of his poison, but I haven't expelled the marker. I know that he's trying to size me up, figure out what I'm doing and how capable I might actually be of doing it. He's probably also confused, because I haven't put up a shield.
Finally, I decide there's been enough waiting, and ask why he let me build my strength back up, "...and don't tell me you still 'want through,' because that's bullshit. You could have taken that while I was down. What are you really after?"
He sits down with a slightly surprised, suspicious look on his face. I feel that prodding at my belly again, and I shove it away with another slap. "Mitts off. It's not there. If you want it back, look behind me. Are you gonna answer my question, or not?"
This time, the surprise isn't so slight. He shoots forward, moving almost faster than I can see. One second, he's sitting on the floor a few yards away from me, and the next, he's to my right, reaching behind me, poking at the mat with his fingers. I resist the impulse to move away. I'll not give him any ground, and besides, it could be worse. At least he isn't groping my chakras any more.
Finding the residue of his attitude soaked into the mat, he falls back into that sitting position, bemused, muttering something I don't understand, then says something to me about not realizing I was that sentient.
Finally, he answers my question. He struggles to describe some of the concepts, but gets across to me that it's rare for him to encounter someone who carries his favorite flavor of torment, who isn't either insensitive to anything beyond physical consciousness, entirely self-destructive, or a one-time producer. Most are all three. He can use them for a while, but they get used up. They don't replenish, or they damage themselves to death, and then he can't find them any more.
The callousness of his description pisses me off, my heart going out to his previous victims, but I keep myself calm, tell myself not to lose sight of what I have to do. I have to know what kind of mindset I'm dealing with. I ask, "What has that got to do with me?"
He answers, "You're the rarity."
My stomach turns. I think I know where this is going. The molten pool inside me boils. I keep my face neutral and watch him.
He frowns. "But you're a stubborn (gibberish). I can dominate you enough to take what I need, but not enough to take what I want. Your friends are going to protect you to death again, and I'll have to look for you again." It's almost as if he's thinking out loud instead of talking to me.
He looks up with eyes as red as blood, leans forward, says my Name with striking gravity, and tells me, "This is the covenant I offer. I will see you protected from my kind, and any other. I will educate you beyond the knowledge of your peers, and provide you with material wealth. I will not dominate your will. In return, you agree to completely surrender your torment to me upon demand, and to admit my marker, that others know not to trespass, and you will remember to yield."
For one dimwitted moment, I feel horribly threatened by his posture and the glow in his eyes, especially combined with that gravelly, dragging voice. I want to crawl backward, hide on the other side of the bed from whatever this thing is, that is leaning into my face. Then, it dawns on me. He wants me to agree to be used as livestock, wear his mark of ownership, and periodically feed him the most tremendous challenge of my being, as if everything I've invested in refining myself were worthless. Oh, HELL NO. My control is tenuous at this point. It's ready, and it's going to blow if I don't make a move.
"What do I have to do?" I beat back the fear and disgust, focus on my outrage and my goal. I bring back the image of the moment when she gave me the ring, permit the pain of knowing where it is now to assail my heart, and draw tears. It has to look real. He has to think it's what I want.
"Be still."
The monster pretends to care. I can see through the charade, but he in his eagerness, he isn't even trying to look through mine. He pulls himself to his knees before me, facing me at eye level, arranges his face in a terrible mockery of compassion that could only fool someone who didn't want to know any better. Behind it is a ghastly, slavish voracity that I'm sure he doesn't know I can see. It takes every ounce of my will to maintain the facade when he takes my hands. My inner self cringes away, revolted, horrified, and enraged.
Keeping eye contact, he says, "You don't have to fight any more." What a pro... I am so disgusted. He doesn't know much about human women. I sniff, hiccup, and look as pitiful as I can, holding that eye contact.
"Do you have to use that... thing... on me?" I don't have to act for this part. That aversion is totally real.
"Not if you don't resist." One hand moves up to my face. I have to struggle to stifle the urge to vomit, or to fight, holding that blistering inner fire in check for the right moment. "Be still. I'm not going to hurt you." His face is a mask of false concern, the stark craving barely hidden behind contrived sympathy. The act is so practiced. How many people has he consumed? At that thought, the awareness of being in the grasp of a soulless predator threatens to freeze me. My blood is like ice, but I hold on.
Suddenly, I'm wrapped in a many-armed embrace. His face is beside mine, his body pressed against me. I didn't even see him move. I hear, "Hold on," and my reflex forces me to do just that, as the world falls out from under me. There's a pull on my mind, searching for a connection. Jagged claws and cold fingertips graze my cheek, and he closes the gap. At that moment, I release not the sick, impotent rage he's looking for, not my lifelong onus, but the blinding, searing light I've built up inside. It erupts from me with a deafening shriek. I give it a massive shove, feel it pouring out of me, striking home, expelling the marker and lighting up the monster's insides.
Shock registers in his eyes as he chokes on the barrage of righteous anger. He tries to pull out of the embrace, but I'm not giving up. I grab a hand full of his filthy, matted hair, and hold him up to the assault. My voice is joined by a howl of agony as my attack rages through his system, burning him from the inside out. The red in his eyes fades, replaced by brilliant light. He pounds my back with his fists, kicks and squirms, struggling to escape from my grip. The molten, bubbling anger continues to erupt, flowing through the connection he chose to make. I feel him shaking, and I push again. The howl rises from that low, guttural tone to an animalistic scream, and I can actually feel heat emitting from his chest.
His hands stop beating on me. His arms drop, hanging limply at his sides. I release the hand full of hair, and his head rocks back, exposing his throat. His eyes are totally expressionless. The last of my shriek dies down. The energy stops flowing. I can feel the mat beneath me, but it's soft now, as if it's not completely formed. I lower him to the floor, laying him on his back, meaning to examine him carefully.
Before I can, there's a loud crackling noise, and fissures begin to appear all over his skin. I flee to the doorway, fearing an explosion, but instead, the body collapses onto the floor. I go back for a closer look, but there's nothing recognizable left, just clumps of what appears to be gray dirt on the floor. Even the clothing is gone.
I look down at the dust, as cracks spread across the floor toward the walls, and the bed collapses in on itself. That's all he is now? That's the scary monster? That's nothing. I kick at the dirt on the floor.
"I told you not to touch me."
I turn around and walk out the door...
...and find myself waking.
Picked on as a child, dumped on as an adult, kicked aside, smacked around, a person can only take so much. I always let it go, suck it up, and drive on, until it gets to something that I can't tolerate. Before I learned control, this is where the meltdown would happen, with uncontrolled verbal storms raging indiscriminately out of the furthest place from my true heart, lashing out at whoever happened to be closest, cutting deep, leaving other people's fragile psyches burned, scarred, and broken. Even the people I love.
Especially the people I love.
Nothing in my life has ever hurt me more than looking at the damage I've done to others. I can't even pretend it's not my fault, because I have this clingy, telescopic memory that focuses on things like that, gets a grip on them, and holds them up to me long after my victims have worked past the incident and moved on. I call the effect my overactive guilt gland.
Years of hard work have gone into the battle with my disposition. It took me twenty years just to realize I couldn't get rid of my temper. It isn't going to go away; it's part of what I am. It's not that I'm charged with overcoming the existence of it; I'm responsible for refining and controlling it, so that it doesn't shape who I am. And it took another decade to get a shaky handle on that. It's been nearly a fourth decade since it clicked inside me, the ability to detach myself from the emotional experience, and act outside of it, separating my tone from my timbre, so to speak. Just because it's loud, doesn't mean I have to be obnoxious.
I've been practicing that control the whole time, and I still slip up on occasion, but I've mostly gotten to a level at which I can let the emotion be the motivational fuel that pushes me to solve a conflict, without letting it be the hand that shapes the method I choose to address that. Only a true fool would ask me to give up now.
Having a blast. Wish you were here.
I sit up, moving so suddenly and quickly that I startle my caregivers. I'm yelling at them, "What the hell! Let me go!"
I try to stand, but there's something wrapped around me, holding me down.
The nurse runs across the room, rapidly telling me to calm down, that it's all right, and she'll undo the strap. She explains that they had to do something. I was walking in my sleep.
Walking in my sleep? I haven't done that in years. I'm stunned into momentary inaction, sitting up in the hospital bed, looking at the nurse like she's grown a second head. As I sit there, everything starts coming back to me; my relationship with the gray haired woman, the terrible things we've been through, and what the creepy guy has done to her. I can feel a bruise on my arm from the shot I was given. The nurse sees the expressions crossing my face as the memory plays through my head, and pauses in her approach, and gives me a wary look.
She says, "Are you in control, or are you going to be a problem?"
Her hand is on her pocket. The shape is too big for a syringe. I think she may be holding a taser.
I struggle for a moment, as the weight of my outrage at what I've learned tries to overpower my hold on logic and reason. I can't fight him this way. This is what he feeds on. He'd just use it to turn me against myself. He'd destroy everything we've fought for. I may not understand much of what is going on, but I understand that.
I can't be not angry. It's too much. I can't know what he is and what he's done without having an emotional response to that knowledge. It would be stupid to try to deny that. I just have to not be controlled by how angry I am. I can be angry and reasonable at the same time. I have to, or we're lost.
I can feel energy building up around me. I've been unconsciously pulling. I'm inside of something that looks kind of like a flame. I gather it into myself, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly, sending the energy back where it came from. I tell the nurse I'm all right. I find the buckle on the belt, and I get up.
I'm still wearing the footie pajamas and puppy slippers. Grateful as I am for the comfort and rest, this isn't going to do. I need to be taken seriously. I take them off and stand in the middle of the room, and close my eyes. I try to clear my mind, but it's not going to happen. Meditation just isn't my thing. I can't be not angry. I just can't.
When I open my eyes, there is clothing on the couch. I meant to make it materialize all ready on me, but this is good enough. At first, it looks like there's two of everything, but then I realize, there's a set of clothes, and a set of armor. The clothes are soft, dark, and thin. They won't constrict or weigh me down. The armor looks like leather, and it's as light as paper, but it feels cold, like metal. The top looks like an oversized long sleeve tee shirt, and it's flexible. It seems to be crocheted. The rest looks like it was designed for rollerblading or skateboarding. There are pieces shaped like pads for the thighs, knees, and lower legs. They're arranged the way they're supposed to be worn. It's not designed for full coverage. Instead, I can feel that the pieces are connected by some kind of energy running over the whole thing. When I pick up top "pads" for the legs, the lower ones come with them.
I put on the clothes, and the armor. I head out into the lobby. There, the doc is waiting for me. The others are all gone. Doc asks if I'm sure I'm ready to do this. I'm not, but I'm going to do it anyway, and I think he knows that. What else can I do? I can't just hide in here forever. Eventually, it would be more like being imprisoned than having been given asylum, and if they were to find a way to come in after me, it would cease to be a neutral place.
The doc asks me what I'm going to do about the connection, and my shield. The reminder feels like being punched in the chest, and the expression on my face earns me a stern look. He says, "How are you going to survive if you're not ready to deal with that?"
I realize that I have no idea how to proceed. I got the feeling that the ceremony was more than just symbolic. Otherwise, she might be able to break through my emotional defenses, but she shouldn't be able to banish my shield like she does. I ask the doc why she can affect my control of energy, but I can't just work through the same connection to prevent him from changing her. He explains that I can affect her control of energy, too, but not her thoughts and feelings, and not his influence. That's why she hasn't really attacked me, because I would just be able to absorb, deflect, or diffuse the energy, just as she is. The one time I was able to affect her, it was because she wasn't expecting me to lash out. She let her guard down then, but it won't be down again. He also tells me that she's not the same spirit that she was, any more than I am the same. Just as the object I absorbed corrupted me, his energy has corrupted her. I'm going to continue to attract more things like him, and unless I release her, every single one of them is going to try to use her to manipulate me.
For a moment I don't understand what he's telling me, and then I do. There is no "the" key, but as long as I'm attached to her, she's a key, and she'll never be safe or free.
I tell him I understand, and then I start focusing on finding the place within myself where the connection is. I've unconsciously put my hands over my heart. The doc watches for a second, then stops me and explains that magic was involved in creating the bond, and energy work is required to break it. He tells me I have what I need, and I realize that in my hands, I'm holding the unity candle from our ceremony. I can see now that it's a ceramic oil lamp made to look like a candle, so that it can't diminish from burning. I understand what I have to do.
The room wavers. I'm standing in front of the door. I can feel that the "asylum" illusion is fading because I've decided to leave. If I hesitate, I'll disrupt the others' illusions, and their healing processes. The door opens, and I step out into the sunlight.
When I do, the building behind me kind of vanishes, and there's just a big parking lot. Off to my left and right are an empty street, bordered by empty sidewalks. I see the parking garage on the other side. Quickly, I surround myself with another shield, covering it with spikes, and back against a wall. Across the street, the two of them see me, and rush forward. They stop when the shield goes up. He gives her a look, and she advances on me, asking, "Why do you keep wasting your energy?"
When she's about six feet away, I hold up the candle-lamp. She stops and looks at me, and asks, "Where did you get that?" She looks confused and nervous, and suddenly I don't want to do this. I want to grab her and run back into the asylum, but I know that even though it's "there," it's not there, and it's not an option. I hold the lamp out in front of me and pour the oil on the sidewalk. I tell her "I reject you, body, mind, and spirit. I am not your partner. I am not one with you. We are unique, and separate from each other. You are not permitted to touch me." I force myself to feel separated from her, then throw the lamp down. It shatters on the pavement at her feet, and I feel like someone just ripped out my heart. I fight to not take it all back. My stomach is sick. Her face twists in shock and disbelief, then I can see tears, and she quietly says two syllables in gibberish. I don't know what the word means, but hearing it is like a kick in the gut, and I can't look at her face any more.
The creepy guy yells at her. "What is wrong with you? Take down that shield before she gets away again!"
Her hand reaches for the shield. I don't want to hurt her. I tell her, "Don't."
She hesitates. I step between them. Now, she's to my right, and he's to my left.
She steps forward, but she doesn't touch the spikes. I stop fighting the pain, and instead push that into my shield, and I feel her step back away from me again.
She says, "I can't. I can't even touch it."
He says, "then I don't need you for that any more." I only have a split second to realize what he means. He rushes forward, his body melting into a black cloud as he moves. I throw yet another shield up, this one over both of us, and the cloud flows over it like thick ash from a volcano. I feel pressure, almost like a heavy pounding on the outside. This isn't going to hold up to that attack for very long.
She's still looking at me. It doesn't seem to have dawned on her that we're both being attacked. She's not even going to fight back against him.
Not knowing what else to do, I fuse my spiky shield with the outer shield, keeping a wall between myself and her, and begin funneling energy attacks into the outer arc of it. Lightning-like streaks zip through it, making it look like an angry thunderhead, and the pressure is reduced. The smoke rises away from the shield momentarily. I can hear laughter, but it doesn't seem to be centered anywhere. A second later, lightning from the smoke hits the shield. A single bolt impacts the side, hitting so hard that it cracks all the way to the ground.
I melt it back together, realizing that he's attacking her side of the shield to wear me down, but unable to figure out what else to do. Then, inside her half of the bubble, I see another shield go up. She's finally defending herself. I put my hands into the wall of my shield and focus as hard as I can, creating a doorway in the side, and she runs several yards away, keeping herself protected.
The ash re-forms into the creepy guy. He looks back and forth between us. I'm drawing energy for another attack, and she appears to be drawing for one, too. I worry for a moment that it's going to be directed at me, but instead, the two of them go at each other. From behind her, a huge mass of pavement rises into the air and breaks up into little pieces, which rain down on the creepy guy. He belches fire at her, melting the asphalt around her shield into a bubbling mass of goo. She's protected by her shield, but she can't go anywhere.
I fire another blast at him, but my energy is unfocused. He hasn't shielded, so the blast knocks him down the street, but I don't think it did a lot of damage. He doesn't even get up or dust off. He starts crawling toward her on his hands and feet, like a bug. His body becomes longer and thinner. When he gets to the edge of the melted down tar, he lifts up and stretches over it, striking at her shield with a punch that seems to carry more than just physical force. I see it losing its shape, a shockwave rolling through it to the other side.
I have to try again, before he breaks that shield down. I start throwing everything I can at him. If they can move stuff, then I can, too. I focus on one of the huge cement trashcans anchored to the pavement. It comes up, bringing part of the sidewalk with it. I direct it through the air, hitting him from the side. He doesn't even notice that it's coming. It knocks him back into the street and lands on top of him. He crawls out from under, and I can see that now he has many arms and legs, long fangs, and a stinger, but still the same face as before, wearing an obsessed, hungry expression. Ignoring the damage I've done to him, he turns and begins crawling back toward her. He's like some kind of predatory insect, intent only on one thing.
I run forward, hurling a stream of unfocused energy at him as I go. The anger from before breaks through, and all I can think about is him feeding on her all of this time, changing who she is, poisoning her. That acidic feeling fills my chest, and my skin feels hot again. I throw ball after ball of energy, knocking him back, bowling him over, but he keeps getting up. The wave of outrage builds up in my chest, and I let it go, directing it at him like a huge psychic blast.
The wave hits him, tearing huge chunks from the asphalt and throwing them - and him - further down the street. I'm distantly aware of the sound of someone screaming, but my focus is on the monster in front of me. Now, I'm taking whatever I can draw from everything around me, the ground, the buildings, parking meters, everything. I'm using both hands, I'm throwing a barrage of bolts, fiery blasts, and debris at him. His body is taking a pounding, and I can see that this time, damage is being done.
We're dozens of yards from where he started, far enough away that we can no longer see her. He rolls onto his feet, digs his claws into the ground, opens his mouth against the tide of my attacks, and spews out a huge cloud of flying, stinging insects, which spiral up into the air high above my head. I see his body melting into the mass of bugs, and realize he's trying to escape. I turn my attack upward, but the cloud of bugs breaks up and moves away, dodging the blast, and very soon, I can't see any of them. Fearing that they're trying to sneak back to get her, I turn and run at top speed, back the way I came.
No bugs are there, but the doc and the nurse are standing outside my lady's shield, talking to her. Something inside tells me not to go any closer. Instead, I look around. I'm expecting a surprise attack at any moment, but there isn't one. Seconds later, she drops her shield. Each of them puts a hand under one of her arms. They turn as if to walk away, and vanish. I'm pretty sure I know where she's going. He won't be able to get to her there.
I won't see her again, either.
I try to stand, but there's something wrapped around me, holding me down.
The nurse runs across the room, rapidly telling me to calm down, that it's all right, and she'll undo the strap. She explains that they had to do something. I was walking in my sleep.
Walking in my sleep? I haven't done that in years. I'm stunned into momentary inaction, sitting up in the hospital bed, looking at the nurse like she's grown a second head. As I sit there, everything starts coming back to me; my relationship with the gray haired woman, the terrible things we've been through, and what the creepy guy has done to her. I can feel a bruise on my arm from the shot I was given. The nurse sees the expressions crossing my face as the memory plays through my head, and pauses in her approach, and gives me a wary look.
She says, "Are you in control, or are you going to be a problem?"
Her hand is on her pocket. The shape is too big for a syringe. I think she may be holding a taser.
I struggle for a moment, as the weight of my outrage at what I've learned tries to overpower my hold on logic and reason. I can't fight him this way. This is what he feeds on. He'd just use it to turn me against myself. He'd destroy everything we've fought for. I may not understand much of what is going on, but I understand that.
I can't be not angry. It's too much. I can't know what he is and what he's done without having an emotional response to that knowledge. It would be stupid to try to deny that. I just have to not be controlled by how angry I am. I can be angry and reasonable at the same time. I have to, or we're lost.
I can feel energy building up around me. I've been unconsciously pulling. I'm inside of something that looks kind of like a flame. I gather it into myself, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly, sending the energy back where it came from. I tell the nurse I'm all right. I find the buckle on the belt, and I get up.
I'm still wearing the footie pajamas and puppy slippers. Grateful as I am for the comfort and rest, this isn't going to do. I need to be taken seriously. I take them off and stand in the middle of the room, and close my eyes. I try to clear my mind, but it's not going to happen. Meditation just isn't my thing. I can't be not angry. I just can't.
When I open my eyes, there is clothing on the couch. I meant to make it materialize all ready on me, but this is good enough. At first, it looks like there's two of everything, but then I realize, there's a set of clothes, and a set of armor. The clothes are soft, dark, and thin. They won't constrict or weigh me down. The armor looks like leather, and it's as light as paper, but it feels cold, like metal. The top looks like an oversized long sleeve tee shirt, and it's flexible. It seems to be crocheted. The rest looks like it was designed for rollerblading or skateboarding. There are pieces shaped like pads for the thighs, knees, and lower legs. They're arranged the way they're supposed to be worn. It's not designed for full coverage. Instead, I can feel that the pieces are connected by some kind of energy running over the whole thing. When I pick up top "pads" for the legs, the lower ones come with them.
I put on the clothes, and the armor. I head out into the lobby. There, the doc is waiting for me. The others are all gone. Doc asks if I'm sure I'm ready to do this. I'm not, but I'm going to do it anyway, and I think he knows that. What else can I do? I can't just hide in here forever. Eventually, it would be more like being imprisoned than having been given asylum, and if they were to find a way to come in after me, it would cease to be a neutral place.
The doc asks me what I'm going to do about the connection, and my shield. The reminder feels like being punched in the chest, and the expression on my face earns me a stern look. He says, "How are you going to survive if you're not ready to deal with that?"
I realize that I have no idea how to proceed. I got the feeling that the ceremony was more than just symbolic. Otherwise, she might be able to break through my emotional defenses, but she shouldn't be able to banish my shield like she does. I ask the doc why she can affect my control of energy, but I can't just work through the same connection to prevent him from changing her. He explains that I can affect her control of energy, too, but not her thoughts and feelings, and not his influence. That's why she hasn't really attacked me, because I would just be able to absorb, deflect, or diffuse the energy, just as she is. The one time I was able to affect her, it was because she wasn't expecting me to lash out. She let her guard down then, but it won't be down again. He also tells me that she's not the same spirit that she was, any more than I am the same. Just as the object I absorbed corrupted me, his energy has corrupted her. I'm going to continue to attract more things like him, and unless I release her, every single one of them is going to try to use her to manipulate me.
For a moment I don't understand what he's telling me, and then I do. There is no "the" key, but as long as I'm attached to her, she's a key, and she'll never be safe or free.
I tell him I understand, and then I start focusing on finding the place within myself where the connection is. I've unconsciously put my hands over my heart. The doc watches for a second, then stops me and explains that magic was involved in creating the bond, and energy work is required to break it. He tells me I have what I need, and I realize that in my hands, I'm holding the unity candle from our ceremony. I can see now that it's a ceramic oil lamp made to look like a candle, so that it can't diminish from burning. I understand what I have to do.
The room wavers. I'm standing in front of the door. I can feel that the "asylum" illusion is fading because I've decided to leave. If I hesitate, I'll disrupt the others' illusions, and their healing processes. The door opens, and I step out into the sunlight.
When I do, the building behind me kind of vanishes, and there's just a big parking lot. Off to my left and right are an empty street, bordered by empty sidewalks. I see the parking garage on the other side. Quickly, I surround myself with another shield, covering it with spikes, and back against a wall. Across the street, the two of them see me, and rush forward. They stop when the shield goes up. He gives her a look, and she advances on me, asking, "Why do you keep wasting your energy?"
When she's about six feet away, I hold up the candle-lamp. She stops and looks at me, and asks, "Where did you get that?" She looks confused and nervous, and suddenly I don't want to do this. I want to grab her and run back into the asylum, but I know that even though it's "there," it's not there, and it's not an option. I hold the lamp out in front of me and pour the oil on the sidewalk. I tell her "I reject you, body, mind, and spirit. I am not your partner. I am not one with you. We are unique, and separate from each other. You are not permitted to touch me." I force myself to feel separated from her, then throw the lamp down. It shatters on the pavement at her feet, and I feel like someone just ripped out my heart. I fight to not take it all back. My stomach is sick. Her face twists in shock and disbelief, then I can see tears, and she quietly says two syllables in gibberish. I don't know what the word means, but hearing it is like a kick in the gut, and I can't look at her face any more.
The creepy guy yells at her. "What is wrong with you? Take down that shield before she gets away again!"
Her hand reaches for the shield. I don't want to hurt her. I tell her, "Don't."
She hesitates. I step between them. Now, she's to my right, and he's to my left.
She steps forward, but she doesn't touch the spikes. I stop fighting the pain, and instead push that into my shield, and I feel her step back away from me again.
She says, "I can't. I can't even touch it."
He says, "then I don't need you for that any more." I only have a split second to realize what he means. He rushes forward, his body melting into a black cloud as he moves. I throw yet another shield up, this one over both of us, and the cloud flows over it like thick ash from a volcano. I feel pressure, almost like a heavy pounding on the outside. This isn't going to hold up to that attack for very long.
She's still looking at me. It doesn't seem to have dawned on her that we're both being attacked. She's not even going to fight back against him.
Not knowing what else to do, I fuse my spiky shield with the outer shield, keeping a wall between myself and her, and begin funneling energy attacks into the outer arc of it. Lightning-like streaks zip through it, making it look like an angry thunderhead, and the pressure is reduced. The smoke rises away from the shield momentarily. I can hear laughter, but it doesn't seem to be centered anywhere. A second later, lightning from the smoke hits the shield. A single bolt impacts the side, hitting so hard that it cracks all the way to the ground.
I melt it back together, realizing that he's attacking her side of the shield to wear me down, but unable to figure out what else to do. Then, inside her half of the bubble, I see another shield go up. She's finally defending herself. I put my hands into the wall of my shield and focus as hard as I can, creating a doorway in the side, and she runs several yards away, keeping herself protected.
The ash re-forms into the creepy guy. He looks back and forth between us. I'm drawing energy for another attack, and she appears to be drawing for one, too. I worry for a moment that it's going to be directed at me, but instead, the two of them go at each other. From behind her, a huge mass of pavement rises into the air and breaks up into little pieces, which rain down on the creepy guy. He belches fire at her, melting the asphalt around her shield into a bubbling mass of goo. She's protected by her shield, but she can't go anywhere.
I fire another blast at him, but my energy is unfocused. He hasn't shielded, so the blast knocks him down the street, but I don't think it did a lot of damage. He doesn't even get up or dust off. He starts crawling toward her on his hands and feet, like a bug. His body becomes longer and thinner. When he gets to the edge of the melted down tar, he lifts up and stretches over it, striking at her shield with a punch that seems to carry more than just physical force. I see it losing its shape, a shockwave rolling through it to the other side.
I have to try again, before he breaks that shield down. I start throwing everything I can at him. If they can move stuff, then I can, too. I focus on one of the huge cement trashcans anchored to the pavement. It comes up, bringing part of the sidewalk with it. I direct it through the air, hitting him from the side. He doesn't even notice that it's coming. It knocks him back into the street and lands on top of him. He crawls out from under, and I can see that now he has many arms and legs, long fangs, and a stinger, but still the same face as before, wearing an obsessed, hungry expression. Ignoring the damage I've done to him, he turns and begins crawling back toward her. He's like some kind of predatory insect, intent only on one thing.
I run forward, hurling a stream of unfocused energy at him as I go. The anger from before breaks through, and all I can think about is him feeding on her all of this time, changing who she is, poisoning her. That acidic feeling fills my chest, and my skin feels hot again. I throw ball after ball of energy, knocking him back, bowling him over, but he keeps getting up. The wave of outrage builds up in my chest, and I let it go, directing it at him like a huge psychic blast.
The wave hits him, tearing huge chunks from the asphalt and throwing them - and him - further down the street. I'm distantly aware of the sound of someone screaming, but my focus is on the monster in front of me. Now, I'm taking whatever I can draw from everything around me, the ground, the buildings, parking meters, everything. I'm using both hands, I'm throwing a barrage of bolts, fiery blasts, and debris at him. His body is taking a pounding, and I can see that this time, damage is being done.
We're dozens of yards from where he started, far enough away that we can no longer see her. He rolls onto his feet, digs his claws into the ground, opens his mouth against the tide of my attacks, and spews out a huge cloud of flying, stinging insects, which spiral up into the air high above my head. I see his body melting into the mass of bugs, and realize he's trying to escape. I turn my attack upward, but the cloud of bugs breaks up and moves away, dodging the blast, and very soon, I can't see any of them. Fearing that they're trying to sneak back to get her, I turn and run at top speed, back the way I came.
No bugs are there, but the doc and the nurse are standing outside my lady's shield, talking to her. Something inside tells me not to go any closer. Instead, I look around. I'm expecting a surprise attack at any moment, but there isn't one. Seconds later, she drops her shield. Each of them puts a hand under one of her arms. They turn as if to walk away, and vanish. I'm pretty sure I know where she's going. He won't be able to get to her there.
I won't see her again, either.
The Dorky Knight
Last night a friend was subjected to a baseless but very hurtful personal attack. The worst for her was that it was done anonymously, so even though she has some idea of who it wasn't, there's no way to be sure who it was. The person really hit below the belt, attacking an aspect of my friend's life about which everyone with the same aspect is going to be sensitive, and in which my friend has had enough struggles to shake her confidence in herself, even though she is actually going far above and beyond the average in that area. The attack was totally unjustified and wrong, and the person I think it comes from has no business pointing fingers, as she is not handling that aspect of her own life with much honesty. If it is who I think it is, I'm convinced that the attack was her way of making herself feel better by tearing down someone who she can at least pretend is doing worse.
I didn't realize how mad I was about this until this morning, after I woke from the following dream.
My friend and I are at the Ohio Renaissance Faire. We've both gone in garb, but this year I decided not to go the girly route. While my friend is dressed beautifully in a full skirt, blouse, corset, cloak, and sexy boots, I'm in pants instead. I've put on a chainmail shirt, and I've got a sword on a belt and a shield strapped to my back. I look like I am ready to kick some ruffian butt.
We're walking around looking at stuff in the shops. Our kids are with us, but our husbands aren't. They are at the faire, but they've gone to check something out that doesn't interest us. We have a plan to meet for lunch shortly and all go watch shows together.
As we turn to leave the store we're in, the kids ask to visit a specific shop that has padded toys that mimic weapons, so kids can pretend to be knights of old or play stories like Robin Hood without hurting each other. The stores and stages circle around the border of the property and cross in the middle, almost loosely forming kind of a squished figure 8. We have to cross the grass to get to that store. We talk about walking the rest of the way around to get to it, but none of the stores in that direction interest us, so we start cutting across the grass.
Immediately, a former friend of ours jumps in front of us. She is wearing a long dark cloak over a very skimpy dress. She has her hood up, casting a shadow over her face. On her hands are really long, dark velvety gloves. She physically looks different than normal, like she's lost a bunch of weight, even though she didn't start out with any extra. Now, she's gaunt and creepy looking: Bimbette, the wicked sorceress of ill repute.
She tells us we can't go that way because that's the way the kids want to go, and you can't just give kids what they want.
My friend points out that we are going this way because we don't have any interest in the rest of the stores along the loop, but I don't think that's necessary. It isn't this woman's business if we want to do something the kids want. I tell her to buzz off.
Bimbette looks annoyed, and starts shouting that we should be locked up for breaking "the rules." There are no rules at the Ren Faire about which direction you may walk, and there are lots of other people in the grassy area. (Oddly, none of them are paying any attention to us.) Whatever "rules" she's talking about are all in her head.
We ignore her and try to walk around her, and she slaps my friend across the face with her gloved hand. I reach for that hand, but she draws it back quickly and steps away. On my friend's face is a red mark from the slap. It starts to spread, and I realize that Bimbette had something nasty on the glove. It looks like it is causing an allergic reaction. Somehow, I am sure she has an antidote to it in one of the little pouches hanging on her belt.
I demand to know what Bimbette has put on my friend's face. She says it's her "just desserts" for not fitting the mold. That makes me really mad, and I draw my sword. I demand that Bimbette give the antidote, or I will cut her down.
We're no longer at a modern Renaissance Faire. It's darker, and there are more trees. The buildings are more solid, and the shop keepers look scared. There is no one around us who isn't dressed like us. Off to the side are three people imprisoned in stocks. Every so often, someone throws a rotten vegetable at them. Signs identify them as having offended the queen.
Bimbette vanishes with a poof, and I am left standing in the square with my sword drawn like an idiot. My friend's face has hives on it. I quickly grab her and take her to the nearest apothecary to see if the proprietor has anything to soothe her skin. Inside the shop, I find another friend of ours (whom we haven't seen in years) crushing dried herbs into a powder. We show him the reaction, and tell him how it happened. He immediately identifies the poison as the sting of the worker queen. He tells us the worker queen is an ordinary worker bee that thinks it's the queen bee of the hive. It lays eggs, steals royal jelly when the actual queen is not looking, and refuses to do any work even though it really is just a worker bee. It will protect the hive if attacked, and its poison is a very potent irritant because of its diet. He says he can temporarily fix the damage, but we need to go get a special root in order for him to make the antidote.
My friend's daughter is in tears at this point. She thinks that the slap is her fault, because she was the one who wanted to go to the toy shop. Her brother and my son are trying to make her feel better by clowning around to make her laugh, but they're too close to a bunch of glass jars full of ingredients, and we're afraid they're going to knock stuff over. We both tell them we know they mean well, but there are too many breakables, and to cut it out, and they stop. My friend puts her arms around her daughter, looks her in the eyes, and says "This is not your fault."
Immediately, Bimbette's disembodied voice fills the room. "One strike! Unequal treatment! Unfair!"
My friend's hives turn into boils, until I yell, "Bullshit!" Then, they go back to being hives. It feels like Bimbette just cast a spell, and I just cast the counterspell to it.
The chemist mixes up a cream. In it, he puts some powder from a few different jars. I can't read the writing on most of them, but I notice that one says "honesty" on it. I get the mental image of a plant that looks just like a violet, except the petals are white. He whispers over the cream as he stirs in the powders, then asks if he can have one of the daughter's tears. My friend pulls the child to her protectively, but the girl says ok, if it will help Mommy. She leans forward, and the chemist uses the bowl to wipe a tear from her cheek. He mixes that into the cream and then tells my friend to rub some onto the affected area. My friend doesn't want to put her daughter's tears on her face until the girl says, "No, Mommy, those aren't bad tears. Those are tears of responsibility. I can take responsibility even if it's not my fault." The girl then takes a finger, rubs the cream on her mother's face, and then both kids kiss where the hives are. The hives shrink down, leaving just the original bright red hand print.
The chemist smiles, and says "You are almost right. Those are tears of epiphany. You had an epiphany when you realized that responsibility and fault are not the same thing. Your epiphany helps, and the kisses helped even more." Then he looks at my friend and says "This won't completely get rid of the poison. It will only slow it down. If you don't have an antidote, the hives will come back. You need your own cure."
Then to me, he says, "Find this flower," and shows me a picture of a tall, leafy plant with big, floppy orange flower petals. It looks like a super-sized lily. "The roots of the plant grow down into the ground, put shoots up a few feet away from the central stalk. Those shoots are roots, too. You need to collect one of those and bring it back to me." He nods at my friend. "She has to harvest it, but she needs a protector. The woods are dangerous."
It is time for us to meet the guys. We decide that it won't be safe for the kids to come into the woods with us, so when we get to our meeting spot, we quickly explain the situation and ask if they mind us going. The guys agree that the woods would be an unsafe place for us to take the kids, especially since we would be distracted from them by our mission. They decide to take them to the toy shop where we were originally headed, while we go find that root. From behind us, we hear, "Strike two! Dumping the kids off on your husband!" We turn, and there is Bimbette.
Even though I am leaving my son with my husband, and the decision was basically by committee, she is only looking at my friend. My friend shouts back at her, "What would you have me do, risk their lives in the woods where there are wild animals? That's just stupid!" Bimbette doesn't answer, but instead throws a dart (like you would throw at a dart board in a bar, but bigger) at my friend. I use my sword like a baseball bat to deflect it back at her. It sticks in her arm. Again, I demand the antidote, but she throws a glass ball on the ground and disappears in a puff of smoke.
We kiss our husbands and kids goodbye and head toward the city gate.
* * * * * *
We are on a thin dirt pathway in an area so heavily wooded that it is dark as twilight, even though it's the middle of the day. I have my sword drawn, and am looking around. We've been walking on this path for a bit, and it feels like something is following us. We're looking for the plant the chemist told us to find. We've seen a lot of other plants, but none with the flower he showed us. Mostly we are running into ivy plants and bushes.
We hear movement in the underbrush close to the path behind us, several yards back. I turn toward the sound and speak to whatever is in that direction. "We know you are there. You might as well just come out." When nothing does, we decide it must be an animal, and we cautiously walk on for several feet. I keep hearing the movement, always the same distance behind us. Finally, I decide to go back and check. There are paw prints in the dirt off the side of the path, but they look old. The dirt is dry, but the prints look like they were made when it was muddy.
We turn to leave, when a huge cat jumps out at us. It isn't a regular big cat, like a mountain lion or anything. It looks more like a giant house cat. It is gray with white splotches and short hair, and it's wearing a pink collar. I knock my friend to the ground and roll us out from under the cat's paws, then slash at it with my sword, slicing open its nose. The cat growls at us loudly, then meows. It sounds like a normal house cat, only a lot louder. I shout at it to scat, and it hisses. I grab my shield and hand it to my friend. The cat pats at us with a paw, claws extended. My friend smacks the shield into the paw, as I jab at it from the side. The cat jumps back and hunkers down with its ears back. We move away up the path, facing the cat. Its tail is twitching, so we stop and set ourselves for the next attack.
When the cat pounces, I jab my sword all the way into the bottom of one paw, as my friend smacks its nose with the shield, really hard. At the same time, I notice there is a pendant on the collar. I recognize the pendant as belonging to Bimbette. The cat yowls and runs away. Looking in the direction it is running, we spot a flash of bright orange. We go through the pathway the cat has created through the underbrush, and find the flower we're looking for. Digging around, we find the roots sticking up out of the ground. I get a little knife out of the pack I have around my waist, and hand it to my friend. She cuts one root off at ground level. We empty a small bag of compost over the cut root so that it will have something to feed on as it grows back.
We return to the apothecary, where our families are waiting for us. The chemist takes the root and chops it into tiny pieces. These, he mashes into a paste, which he mixes with the cream from before. The mixture kind of melts into an odd blue liquid. The chemist pours it into a cup, hands it to my friend, and tells her to drink it. My friend's kids admonish her to drink every drop, because "you know how important medicine is, and we want you to be ok."
Bimbette appears in a flash, shouting "Strike three! Not being ok in front of your kids! Making them feel like they need to take care of you!" I see her and draw my sword. She reaches for the glass, but my friend holds it behind the shield. Bimbette yells "You can't have that! It's not yours! I didn't give you permission to feel better!" She tries to reach around the shield, and I cut off her arm. Instead of bleeding, the arm just melts into the floor, and the stump closes over with some kind of dark goo. My friend looks at Bimbette and says, "I don't need your permission." She drinks the blue liquid, and the red hand print on her face disappears.
We start talking about which show we're going to. Bimbette is livid, screaming that she's still there, and we have no right to ignore her. I tell her to can it, and we start to walk away. She throws another dart, but this time my friend just bats it away with the shield. I decide she should keep the shield in case Bimbette hasn't given up.
* * * * * * * *
We're back at the Ren, sitting in the audience in the mud pit waiting for the show to start. We've sat closer to the back to avoid getting too muddy. My friend has my shield strapped to her back. The first guy comes out onto the stage. I feel a sense of relief and happy anticipation.
This is where the dream ended. I went on to dream about something else, but I can't remember much about it, just something about a card game at my friend's house. It's something we do a lot, so that's kind of ordinary.
I'm pretty sure the dream is an indication that I want to find some way to negate the unmerited "slap in the face" that the person gave my friend. I know that the daughter would feel responsible for my friend's hurt if she knew about the attack, but it really isn't her fault. Recently, I've seen her demonstrate some maturity in understanding things about herself and about life, even though she's still just a kid, so that fits the dream, too. I see her trying to be a more responsible person, even though that's hard for her.
I'm mad enough to want to hit Bimbette (or whoever the guilty party is) back for what she did, or I wouldn't have dreamed about cutting off her arm. The attack really was very catty, so I guess that explains the feline attack. The cure in the woods, though, I think represented my feeling that my friend has to look within herself to find the answer. She knows that she is not what Bimbette (or whoever it was) called her. I know that she just needs to take ownership of her sense of self-worth, and not let someone damage it with such a cheap pot-shot.
Also, now I really want to go see the mud show at the Ren!
I didn't realize how mad I was about this until this morning, after I woke from the following dream.
My friend and I are at the Ohio Renaissance Faire. We've both gone in garb, but this year I decided not to go the girly route. While my friend is dressed beautifully in a full skirt, blouse, corset, cloak, and sexy boots, I'm in pants instead. I've put on a chainmail shirt, and I've got a sword on a belt and a shield strapped to my back. I look like I am ready to kick some ruffian butt.
We're walking around looking at stuff in the shops. Our kids are with us, but our husbands aren't. They are at the faire, but they've gone to check something out that doesn't interest us. We have a plan to meet for lunch shortly and all go watch shows together.
As we turn to leave the store we're in, the kids ask to visit a specific shop that has padded toys that mimic weapons, so kids can pretend to be knights of old or play stories like Robin Hood without hurting each other. The stores and stages circle around the border of the property and cross in the middle, almost loosely forming kind of a squished figure 8. We have to cross the grass to get to that store. We talk about walking the rest of the way around to get to it, but none of the stores in that direction interest us, so we start cutting across the grass.
Immediately, a former friend of ours jumps in front of us. She is wearing a long dark cloak over a very skimpy dress. She has her hood up, casting a shadow over her face. On her hands are really long, dark velvety gloves. She physically looks different than normal, like she's lost a bunch of weight, even though she didn't start out with any extra. Now, she's gaunt and creepy looking: Bimbette, the wicked sorceress of ill repute.
She tells us we can't go that way because that's the way the kids want to go, and you can't just give kids what they want.
My friend points out that we are going this way because we don't have any interest in the rest of the stores along the loop, but I don't think that's necessary. It isn't this woman's business if we want to do something the kids want. I tell her to buzz off.
Bimbette looks annoyed, and starts shouting that we should be locked up for breaking "the rules." There are no rules at the Ren Faire about which direction you may walk, and there are lots of other people in the grassy area. (Oddly, none of them are paying any attention to us.) Whatever "rules" she's talking about are all in her head.
We ignore her and try to walk around her, and she slaps my friend across the face with her gloved hand. I reach for that hand, but she draws it back quickly and steps away. On my friend's face is a red mark from the slap. It starts to spread, and I realize that Bimbette had something nasty on the glove. It looks like it is causing an allergic reaction. Somehow, I am sure she has an antidote to it in one of the little pouches hanging on her belt.
I demand to know what Bimbette has put on my friend's face. She says it's her "just desserts" for not fitting the mold. That makes me really mad, and I draw my sword. I demand that Bimbette give the antidote, or I will cut her down.
We're no longer at a modern Renaissance Faire. It's darker, and there are more trees. The buildings are more solid, and the shop keepers look scared. There is no one around us who isn't dressed like us. Off to the side are three people imprisoned in stocks. Every so often, someone throws a rotten vegetable at them. Signs identify them as having offended the queen.
Bimbette vanishes with a poof, and I am left standing in the square with my sword drawn like an idiot. My friend's face has hives on it. I quickly grab her and take her to the nearest apothecary to see if the proprietor has anything to soothe her skin. Inside the shop, I find another friend of ours (whom we haven't seen in years) crushing dried herbs into a powder. We show him the reaction, and tell him how it happened. He immediately identifies the poison as the sting of the worker queen. He tells us the worker queen is an ordinary worker bee that thinks it's the queen bee of the hive. It lays eggs, steals royal jelly when the actual queen is not looking, and refuses to do any work even though it really is just a worker bee. It will protect the hive if attacked, and its poison is a very potent irritant because of its diet. He says he can temporarily fix the damage, but we need to go get a special root in order for him to make the antidote.
My friend's daughter is in tears at this point. She thinks that the slap is her fault, because she was the one who wanted to go to the toy shop. Her brother and my son are trying to make her feel better by clowning around to make her laugh, but they're too close to a bunch of glass jars full of ingredients, and we're afraid they're going to knock stuff over. We both tell them we know they mean well, but there are too many breakables, and to cut it out, and they stop. My friend puts her arms around her daughter, looks her in the eyes, and says "This is not your fault."
Immediately, Bimbette's disembodied voice fills the room. "One strike! Unequal treatment! Unfair!"
My friend's hives turn into boils, until I yell, "Bullshit!" Then, they go back to being hives. It feels like Bimbette just cast a spell, and I just cast the counterspell to it.
The chemist mixes up a cream. In it, he puts some powder from a few different jars. I can't read the writing on most of them, but I notice that one says "honesty" on it. I get the mental image of a plant that looks just like a violet, except the petals are white. He whispers over the cream as he stirs in the powders, then asks if he can have one of the daughter's tears. My friend pulls the child to her protectively, but the girl says ok, if it will help Mommy. She leans forward, and the chemist uses the bowl to wipe a tear from her cheek. He mixes that into the cream and then tells my friend to rub some onto the affected area. My friend doesn't want to put her daughter's tears on her face until the girl says, "No, Mommy, those aren't bad tears. Those are tears of responsibility. I can take responsibility even if it's not my fault." The girl then takes a finger, rubs the cream on her mother's face, and then both kids kiss where the hives are. The hives shrink down, leaving just the original bright red hand print.
The chemist smiles, and says "You are almost right. Those are tears of epiphany. You had an epiphany when you realized that responsibility and fault are not the same thing. Your epiphany helps, and the kisses helped even more." Then he looks at my friend and says "This won't completely get rid of the poison. It will only slow it down. If you don't have an antidote, the hives will come back. You need your own cure."
Then to me, he says, "Find this flower," and shows me a picture of a tall, leafy plant with big, floppy orange flower petals. It looks like a super-sized lily. "The roots of the plant grow down into the ground, put shoots up a few feet away from the central stalk. Those shoots are roots, too. You need to collect one of those and bring it back to me." He nods at my friend. "She has to harvest it, but she needs a protector. The woods are dangerous."
It is time for us to meet the guys. We decide that it won't be safe for the kids to come into the woods with us, so when we get to our meeting spot, we quickly explain the situation and ask if they mind us going. The guys agree that the woods would be an unsafe place for us to take the kids, especially since we would be distracted from them by our mission. They decide to take them to the toy shop where we were originally headed, while we go find that root. From behind us, we hear, "Strike two! Dumping the kids off on your husband!" We turn, and there is Bimbette.
Even though I am leaving my son with my husband, and the decision was basically by committee, she is only looking at my friend. My friend shouts back at her, "What would you have me do, risk their lives in the woods where there are wild animals? That's just stupid!" Bimbette doesn't answer, but instead throws a dart (like you would throw at a dart board in a bar, but bigger) at my friend. I use my sword like a baseball bat to deflect it back at her. It sticks in her arm. Again, I demand the antidote, but she throws a glass ball on the ground and disappears in a puff of smoke.
We kiss our husbands and kids goodbye and head toward the city gate.
* * * * * *
We are on a thin dirt pathway in an area so heavily wooded that it is dark as twilight, even though it's the middle of the day. I have my sword drawn, and am looking around. We've been walking on this path for a bit, and it feels like something is following us. We're looking for the plant the chemist told us to find. We've seen a lot of other plants, but none with the flower he showed us. Mostly we are running into ivy plants and bushes.
We hear movement in the underbrush close to the path behind us, several yards back. I turn toward the sound and speak to whatever is in that direction. "We know you are there. You might as well just come out." When nothing does, we decide it must be an animal, and we cautiously walk on for several feet. I keep hearing the movement, always the same distance behind us. Finally, I decide to go back and check. There are paw prints in the dirt off the side of the path, but they look old. The dirt is dry, but the prints look like they were made when it was muddy.
We turn to leave, when a huge cat jumps out at us. It isn't a regular big cat, like a mountain lion or anything. It looks more like a giant house cat. It is gray with white splotches and short hair, and it's wearing a pink collar. I knock my friend to the ground and roll us out from under the cat's paws, then slash at it with my sword, slicing open its nose. The cat growls at us loudly, then meows. It sounds like a normal house cat, only a lot louder. I shout at it to scat, and it hisses. I grab my shield and hand it to my friend. The cat pats at us with a paw, claws extended. My friend smacks the shield into the paw, as I jab at it from the side. The cat jumps back and hunkers down with its ears back. We move away up the path, facing the cat. Its tail is twitching, so we stop and set ourselves for the next attack.
When the cat pounces, I jab my sword all the way into the bottom of one paw, as my friend smacks its nose with the shield, really hard. At the same time, I notice there is a pendant on the collar. I recognize the pendant as belonging to Bimbette. The cat yowls and runs away. Looking in the direction it is running, we spot a flash of bright orange. We go through the pathway the cat has created through the underbrush, and find the flower we're looking for. Digging around, we find the roots sticking up out of the ground. I get a little knife out of the pack I have around my waist, and hand it to my friend. She cuts one root off at ground level. We empty a small bag of compost over the cut root so that it will have something to feed on as it grows back.
We return to the apothecary, where our families are waiting for us. The chemist takes the root and chops it into tiny pieces. These, he mashes into a paste, which he mixes with the cream from before. The mixture kind of melts into an odd blue liquid. The chemist pours it into a cup, hands it to my friend, and tells her to drink it. My friend's kids admonish her to drink every drop, because "you know how important medicine is, and we want you to be ok."
Bimbette appears in a flash, shouting "Strike three! Not being ok in front of your kids! Making them feel like they need to take care of you!" I see her and draw my sword. She reaches for the glass, but my friend holds it behind the shield. Bimbette yells "You can't have that! It's not yours! I didn't give you permission to feel better!" She tries to reach around the shield, and I cut off her arm. Instead of bleeding, the arm just melts into the floor, and the stump closes over with some kind of dark goo. My friend looks at Bimbette and says, "I don't need your permission." She drinks the blue liquid, and the red hand print on her face disappears.
We start talking about which show we're going to. Bimbette is livid, screaming that she's still there, and we have no right to ignore her. I tell her to can it, and we start to walk away. She throws another dart, but this time my friend just bats it away with the shield. I decide she should keep the shield in case Bimbette hasn't given up.
* * * * * * * *
We're back at the Ren, sitting in the audience in the mud pit waiting for the show to start. We've sat closer to the back to avoid getting too muddy. My friend has my shield strapped to her back. The first guy comes out onto the stage. I feel a sense of relief and happy anticipation.
This is where the dream ended. I went on to dream about something else, but I can't remember much about it, just something about a card game at my friend's house. It's something we do a lot, so that's kind of ordinary.
I'm pretty sure the dream is an indication that I want to find some way to negate the unmerited "slap in the face" that the person gave my friend. I know that the daughter would feel responsible for my friend's hurt if she knew about the attack, but it really isn't her fault. Recently, I've seen her demonstrate some maturity in understanding things about herself and about life, even though she's still just a kid, so that fits the dream, too. I see her trying to be a more responsible person, even though that's hard for her.
I'm mad enough to want to hit Bimbette (or whoever the guilty party is) back for what she did, or I wouldn't have dreamed about cutting off her arm. The attack really was very catty, so I guess that explains the feline attack. The cure in the woods, though, I think represented my feeling that my friend has to look within herself to find the answer. She knows that she is not what Bimbette (or whoever it was) called her. I know that she just needs to take ownership of her sense of self-worth, and not let someone damage it with such a cheap pot-shot.
Also, now I really want to go see the mud show at the Ren!
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