By request

A few readers have asked me to try to draw the Doc. Though I'm not a confident (because I don't feel competent) artist when it comes to drawing, I decided to give it a shot (no pun intended.)

Instead of trying to put pencil to paper, this time I did the entire thing in photoshop. That worked out slightly better, though I couldn't focus on his relaxed state and ended up drawing the last time I saw him. I think this one came out better than the drawing of the monster. Maybe I draw better with a mouse than with a pencil.

Parting shot down

This is one of those that started off with me knowing a bunch of things that had "happened," but which I didn't actually experience in the dream. I knew them as memories, though in reality, they have not occurred. There are some of them which might, though, because I'm in the process right now of changing jobs, and that was the subject of the dream.

I had finished the hiring process with the place I'm interviewing with now. I had a start date, giving me just enough time to provide my current employer and my psychotic, abusive boss with two weeks' notice and then have two days off before starting my new job. I hope that happens, but in reality, employers often don't give new employees start dates that far off, and I'll probably be unable to do anything like that.

I wanted very badly to be ungracious, tell her off, or quit without notice to make her scramble to cover my shift, but instead, I typed up a nice letter about how I was moving on to an environment that I felt was more suited to my professional capabilities. The one thing I could not bring myself to leave out of the letter was that I the work environment had strongly contributed to my decision to seek other employment. Not only is that an important truth, I was sure that if I didn't say it, my employer would try to use the letter as evidence against my retaliation claim with OSHA, because they've been that sneaky and underhanded about everything else. 

I'm printing my "resignation" letter after having read it for what feels like the billionth time. I feel bad writing about the work environment in a notice like this, but I'd be more uncomfortable leaving the company with anything that gave the illusion that we were parting on good terms.

It takes three tries, because I'm so nervous about how this is going to go that I keep choosing the wrong printer, the one that isn't hooked up, instead of the one that is. Finally, I get it to print. I put it in a labeled envelope, for added formality. I throw a jacket on and head out the door to warm up the van.

It's freezing outside, and my old van doesn't want to start. Instead of fighting with it, I decide to walk there instead. Might as well. I've got two weeks before I'll be driving across town to work every day. The thought gives me a boost. I lock the van, go get my coat and gloves, and head up the street with my letter in hand.

The cold air beats on my face, but it's not bad. It's freezing, but not windy. By the time I get to work, though, my nose is red. I should have worn a scarf.

I'm early. From where I live, it actually takes me less time to walk to work than to drive. I take a moment and buy my usual - a quart of chocolate milk - to substitute for the fact that I won't get a lunch break during the first 6 or possibly 7 hours of the 9 hour shift for which I'm scheduled. In two weeks, I won't have to deal with that any more. The place where I'm going doesn't schedule past 8 hours, and has mandatory breaks. That's going to be different for me after 6 years of this place.

I take my purchase, with receipt, into the back room, and hand my boss the envelope. She's on the phone. She doesn't look at it, so she doesn't notice that it says my name, followed by "two weeks' notice" on the front. I wait until she is off the phone. She glances at the envelope, does a double-take, then gets up and walks out of the room.

Okay, fine. I'm not playing her game today. I'm in a good mood.

I wait to clock in. I can hear her "pissed off" laugh, a harsh, pounding laughter she pulls out for occasions when she wants to sound like she's not bothered or upset, but she's actually really steamed. That lets me know she definitely read the front of the envelope and is pretending not to have noticed.

Whatever. Time comes around, and I clock in, walk out, and ask which register I'm on. She tells me. I start the routine for opening that register. I'm about to ask to make sure she did read the front of that envelope, when she abruptly turns and walks into the back room again.

My co-worker asks me what set her off. I tell him. He laughs. I ask what's so funny, and he very quietly says, "She was talking about you on the phone this morning, planning how to break you down by making you work swing shifts for a month. Now, she can't. You just ruined her plans."

We are stocking cigarettes while we talk, grabbing packs out of cartons and stuffing them into the pack rack behind us. It's an unending task, so we're kept pretty busy even though there's not a customer in the store.

She hears our quiet voices, comes out to the front, and says, "You guys going to do any work today, or just stand around talking?" We both stop what we're doing, hands full of cigarettes, and look at her like she's grown a second head. She can see that we're performing job duties. She's just in a bad mood.

I say, "Look, just because you're annoyed about my notice doesn't mean you have to bark at us. You can see that we're working." Now that I don't have to fear unemployment, her behavior doesn't evoke the same impotent, head-down-closed-mouth resentful anger. I'm not caged any more.

My coworker chokes on thin air, coughs and sputters, and escapes the situation by heading over to brew a pot of coffee. He's not abandoning me. He's getting out of my way.

She says, "So, where will you be working?"

I remind her that, as it says in my letter, I'm not disclosing that information. What I didn't say in the letter is my reason, which is that I fully expect her to try to sabotage my new position by showing up and bad-mouthing me to my new boss before she even gets a chance to get to know me.

My boss glares at me and tells me that by refusing to answer her question, I'm being insubordinate, and she can fire me on the spot. I know that's not true. It takes the company two weeks just to write an employee up, and they can't fire me without doing that first. By the time they get anything done, I'll be at my new workplace anyway. She's just blowing smoke, and we're both aware of that.

I smile and wait. Forced to back down from what she said, she starts handing out crap duty, literally. I'm ordered to first clean the restrooms, then take lot duty. No one ever gets both of those chores in one shift, and I know it's meant as a punishment, but it doesn't bother me, because I know that's all she can do.

Then she says, "...and when you get done with that, you can meet me in the cooler."

So, I'm assigned all of the heavy lifting for the day. Okay. I can handle that.

I start the tasks, grabbing the necessary tools. While I'm in the men's room cleaning, I hear someone go into the ladies' and move around. When I go in there, it's a mess, toilet paper everywhere, wetness on the floor, walls, and bowl. I leave the cleaning equipment there, put up the wet floor sign, and go for a bucket. I can't believe she thought this would phase me. All I have to do is sweep up the paper, then pour water on everything before washing and sanitizing. There's a drain in the floor, for crying out loud.

She has this smug look on her face. I smile and wander off with the bucket and broom, as the smug look changes to confusion. When it doesn't take me any longer to do the ladies' room than to do the men's, and I don't complain about it, she has to look and make sure I actually did the chore, taking my coworker with her to witness, because she's assuming I didn't get it done. While she's doing that, I gather the stuff for lot duty. I hear the coworker say, "...looks like she washed the walls, too." as I'm on my way out the door. My boss glares at me, but what can she say? It's clean and dry.

I go through the whole series of tasks for lot without incident, taking about half an hour to get everything done, because for once, it isn't that bad. Usually, she waits until later in the day to send me out, so I'm used to the chore being messier and heavier.

I come back inside and head for the cooler, but she's not there. I find her in the back room, let her know lot is done, and I'm ready for the next thing. She tells me it can't be done that fast, and she's going to go inspect my work for short cuts. I shrug, and ask if she wants me to wait here or start in the cooler. That I'm not concerned pisses her off, and she tells me I'd better check my attitude, as if I said something different. When that also fails to bother me, she sends me on into the cooler and goes outside.

By the time she joins me in the cooler ten minutes later, I've got two "doors" filled with product and am working on the third. I work much faster when I'm in there by myself. She immediately begins working on whatever she can find that involves reaching for things that are over my head. Everywhere I go, she has to put the step ladder right over me, then climb up and reach for stuff, knocking it down so that I have to catch it to keep it from falling on me. I stop working on what I'm doing, go to the other end of the cooler where there are no shelves, and start putting away bottles of pop. She glares at me, starts telling me how worthless she thinks I am, and how it won't matter if I go someplace new because I'm never going to amount to anything. She says I'll end up in as much trouble at my new job as I am with her, calls me lazy and stupid, and accuses me of having issues with people in authority.

That finally gets to me. I've never had trouble at work like this. In my past, to which she is not privy, I've been far above the position I'm in now, and my success in the past was due to my work ethic and professionalism. She doesn't know anything about me, and has no right to make such criticisms. I grit my teeth and continue stocking, reminding myself that I've only got two more weeks to deal with her. She continues berating me, pushing and pushing, talking about the person she's made up in her head for me to be, instead of the person I know that I am. Then she starts talking about what kind of parents must have raised me.

I can handle all of it, until she starts talking about my mother. I know what she's trying to do. She thinks if she pisses me off enough, I'll hit her, and she'll be able to press charges, once again showing me the false image of me she's built up in her mind. I struggle to not lose my temper, but I've been subjected to a half-hour barrage, and I'm worn down. I finally tell her what I'm thinking. I've been a foreign ambassador for my hometown. I've been a business owner, a teacher, a professional artist, and a model. I've been not only above the position I'm in now, but above the position she's in. With the way she treats her subordinates, and the attitude she has toward other people, she'll never be anything more than the fat fish in a little pond that she is now. And it doesn't matter what she says, because I'm out from under her thumb, and there's nothing she can do about that. There's nothing more she can do to me but stupid, petty little things like this.

She turns beet red and rushes me. I try to put the cooler door between us, but she runs around it, slams into me, and knocks me into the beer cave, landing on top of me. She sits up and starts swinging at my face, calling me obscene names the whole time. I'm trying to dodge and block, but she's getting through anyway. A regular customer sees the fight, and rushes in to pull my boss off of me. I scramble away from her, backing up against a rack of 12-pack bottles. The customer is looking at us like we're from another planet, but at the same time, he's kind of grinning, and I know he's thinking, "Cool! Chick fight!"

She immediately cools off, tells the guy that this isn't what it looks like, and I attacked her. He looks at the shiner that's all ready forming under my eye, blood on my lip, bruised arms, and messed up hair, then at her undamaged face, and unruffled demeanor, and says, "Riiiiiight."

She still pulls out her phone, calls the police, and says she wants to press charges. The customer immediately tells me he'll hang around and act as a witness, and I know that the bulk of the assault is on the store's video of the beer cave, but there's no proof of what happened in the cooler, and I'll probably be arrested on her word before the whole thing gets straightened out. I hear her also tell the dispatcher that I stole a quart of chocolate milk, which is sitting in the back room without a receipt. I paid with my check card, so again, I'll be able to prove she's lying, but it's going to take time to get that proof.

She's going to try to make sure I'm unavailable to start my new job. My heart sinks, and I feel totally defeated, wondering if I'm ever going to win one instead of getting trampled all the time.

I woke today feeling pretty depressed, probably because tomorrow is my first day back after being on vacation for a week. My boss hasn't had me at work to harass every day, and I know what happens when she doesn't get her fix. After her week's vacation in December, she was intolerable for days. That's why I ended up taking these days off. I just needed to get the hell away from her. I've really been dreading going back. 

A few minutes ago, I got a phone call that has changed all of that. I just got hired in to the photo center of a bigger chain store. It's going to start out part time, but I've all ready been told I'll be getting more hours soon.

I've actually got a new job. I am out from under her thumb. It's real. And unlike in my nightmares, there's going to be nothing she can do about it. I'll never have to deal with her again.

In the meantime, I'm really glad I'm not dreaming about the scary monster that has been haunting my nightmares for almost a month. Between getting through that, and the good news today, I'm feeling pretty darned good, like a thousand pound weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.

Gotta go - time to start composing my letter.    ˆ֊ˆ  

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. 

Trying my hand

I decided I needed an image to give more visual idea of what the monster from my recent nightmares looks like. It didn't come out right, but I'm posting it anyway.

Since I've had zero training in drawing techniques (unless public school elementary art class from 30 years ago counts) I warn you, I totally suck at drawing (and you can tell by the hand, which I should have positioned with the fingers curling more around the arm.) I did do the original outline by hand before editing for color in photoshop (during which the program decided to crash about 20 times, which is unusual.) The image isn't going to look like a photograph, it's going to look like a badly drawn cartoon version of the guy. But, it at least gives a visual of the eyes, the boots (which I am pretty sure are steel-toed,) and the (originally) gaunt face. I chose the pose because I had something in that same pose to look at, and because he's actually stood almost like that at one point. 

On a side note, no, I didn't draw the wall. It's a small section of Zane Cavern in Ohio, where I shot like 500 photos when I visited. I pasted it in layers and manipulated it to create the two walls shown in the image.

Into the light

Inside of my heart is a tiny, bright little light. It's mine, and it's like a nightlight. I can feel the warmth of it, constructed of the right that is in me, my love for my family, my identity, my conscience. It is reminding me what I need to do. I reach in, and focus on it, holding on tightly.

My head hurts again, but it's not bad. I've felt much, much worse before. This is only a minor thing. I am not going to let it distract me.

I pull the light, stretching it over my whole heart, filling it with what is only me, and my will. I feel warm. I keep stretching and pulling, careful to keep the light close to, but under, the skin on the front. It has to be done just right, or this will be noticed. I stretch it over my ribs, grow it across my belly and my shoulders, down my arms and legs, through my throat and over my face, down into my hands and feet. It's like there's a blanket of light under my skin, warming my body.

Once the light has filled every inch, I begin to expand it down toward my back, letting it push out everything that is not me, not my will. The cold, dank, darkness begins to sink through my body, until I feel it pushing against the skin of my back, all except for in my head. There, I find a marker that must be left for now, or he'll know what I'm doing. I surround the marker with my light, isolate it, and harden the light into a solid covering, so that the marker is in place, but it is not touching me. It will remain, but it cannot poison me.

I push the light out through my back, feeling the nasty, clammy darkness oozing out before it like pus. I focus on rejecting that energy, pushing it down into the mat where it won't be seen. It's not mine. I don't want it. Go away!

Relief floods me as the last drop is pushed out, leaving me no longer longer feeling contaminated, no longer compromised. But now, I'm really, really tired again.

I could open my eyes, try to talk, but instead, I find myself drifting, and then there is nothing.

I had little fragments of dreams throughout the rest of the night, nothing I can really place today. It was like I was drifting in an out from the snippet dreams, into and out of one main dream about resting on a bed made with a hard mat, and a pillow of leaves. The whole time, I felt watched, the way my mother used to watch me when I was sick as a kid with really bad asthma, or the time I got bit by a mosquito and almost died of Encephalitis. I felt kind of tended to, for lack of a better term.

This morning, I feel more rested than yesterday, like I got about half a night's sleep... but now I'm definitely sure that I'm fighting a cold... probably a sinus infection. My son is sick, too, so we're headed off to get checked out. I swear, I have never produced this much snot in my entire life!


The word of the day is: Blaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!

Hangover

I'm in a bed, but it isn't mine. It's narrow, barely wide enough for just me, and it's not soft. I'm propped in a half-sitting, half-reclining position. Something less firm than what I'm laying on is under my head, and it feels like I'm covered by a thin blanket. Feeling totally disoriented, I try to figure out where I am, and why, but I can't remember anything prior to this moment, except that I was just dreaming there were ghosts in my apartment, talking to me. I learned how old they are by asking them what year it is, each of them answering with the year in which they died. The rest of the details have all ready faded.

I feel watched. It's a terribly disconcerting sensation. I'm sure there is someone in the room, but I can't feel what kind of presence it is. It's not masked. I'm a bit groggy. I try to pretend to still be asleep, hoping that whoever it is won't notice as I try to get a better sense of the room.

It feels like it's just me, and the watching presence. I feel mentally prodded at, and I'm pretty sure it knows I'm awake. I find my eyes opening, despite my intent.

He's leaning against the wall at the head of the bed, about ten feet away from me. He looks a little different from before. For a second, I can't place it, but then it clicks; he's less scrawny, and less ragged looking. His eyes aren't as dark or as red-rimmed as before. His face isn't quite as gaunt, and his form isn't so wiry. He looks like he's put on a couple of pounds, and maybe gotten some sleep. Except, I know that isn't why. I don't know what happened. My mind reaches back for the memory, and encounters something that feels like a huge wad of cotton. Thinking in that direction floods my heart with chagrin and loss. Why?

I try to turn my head, and a bolt of pain shoots through from the back into both of my eyes. Something laying across my forehead pulls at my skin, and I reach up to feel dampness on a smooth, flat, surface. He says, "It's an herb. Don't try to move around yet."

I can't move? Why can't I move? What the hell is going on? I'm engulfed in a feeling of dread, not like I'm in imminent danger, but like I feel when I've had a blowout at someone and said something I'm going to feel guilty about for the rest of my life. It's an all-to-familiar feeling, but not being able to recall the incident, and knowing it involves him, is totally unnerving.

The fact that we're not on my beach suddenly registers with me. This place doesn't look familiar. The wall he's leaning on is stone... the whole rest of the room seems to be stone. It's not constructed - it seems to be cut out of one piece. There's an arched doorway to another room in the middle of the wall across from me. I can't see into the next room. Where is this?

He steps over to me, crouches down, and reaches for my face. I cringe, startled, and that pain shoots through me again. He looks annoyed. "I told you, don't move. You're injured." He lifts the damp herbs off of my forehead. I see that what he has is a poultice of long, narrow brown leaves. He turns it over and places it back on my head, reaches down beside the bed, and then places his fingers on the poultice. A coolness spreads through it, and I am able to guess that he's just put a few drops of water on it. He holds a spoon up to my mouth, and out of instinct, I open without thinking, and swallow warm, sweet liquid with a distinctly grassy flavor.

He slides his fingers behind my shoulder, and then upward toward my head. I hear the pillow behind my head rustling, and I realize it's not a pillow, but a big bundle of leaves. His fingers brush the spot that is sore, and my head explodes with pain. Darkness closes in on my vision, and I'm instantly nauseous. I'm overtaken by the memory of being dominated and then pinned, the pain in my arms and shoulders, and the feeling of having my head punctured by that thing. I fail to suppress an agonized scream.

I feel his fingers withdraw, and there's cool dampness beneath the wound. It's incredibly soothing, and I feel numbness blooming through the back of my head. My awareness slowly expands from inside my head to the rest of my body, and I find that my breathing is hard, eyes are clamped shut, and I have a death grip on the blanket, holding it bunched up around my throat. The feeling of dread deepens, accompanied by a nagging sense that I can't place. I remember seeing the Doc with a terrible, somber and guilty expression on his face, holding a blade to my neck, but he's not looking at me. I let go of the blanket and feel the skin there. My fingers brush over another of those leaves. The area beneath it feels bruised, and my heart aches. I'm pretty sure I have lost an ally.

I force myself to breathe, bite back tears. This is bad, and I know it. I'm in trouble, and I'm not going to get out of it by wallowing self-pity and remorse. I'm going to have to be able to defend myself, somehow. Opening my eyes, I look to see what the monster is doing.

The monster is hovering over me with a strange expression on his face. His jaw is set, lips drawn together in a tight line, eyes wide, and his brow creased with apparent anxiety. One hand still rests on my shoulder. The other hovers over my body indecisively, as if he's not sure what to do. Is he serious? Does he think this act is going to fool me after everything else he's done. I'm offended. For just a split second, there is the impulse to tell him off, but before I act on it, another thought occurs to me.

I'm injured. I can't get up and fight. I don't know if I can use energy, or if anything I do if I can use it would work against him. I can get angry and blow off some verbal steam, but that would only serve to alert him that he hasn't broken me down. As long as he's feigning concern and treating my injuries, he's not an immediate, active threat in the way that he is when he's overtly aggressive. I have no viable alternative but to play along.

I allow my distrust of him to show, but I don't offer any resistance. Instead, I begin asking questions. I let a little of the fear I'm feeling bleed into my voice. "Where are we? What did you do to me?"

He answers "This is a hidden place. You're safe here."

Oh, yeah. Safe. With a monster 10 inches from  my face. Now, that's security. I force my face to relax a little. It takes a huge amount of control to not flinch away from his raspy, growling voice.

"I brought you here to recover."

Okay. Why would he do that? Wouldn't an injury give him an advantage? Why isn't he using my condition to gain access to what I've been protecting? I want to ask, but I'm afraid to. Instead, I ask what I'm recovering from.

He explains that he's never "crossed through" during what he first tries to describe with one of his gibberish words, then pauses, and says "a transference." He seems to think this explains everything, until I shoot him a look of total confusion. Then he clarifies with "I injured you during the escape. It's not as bad as it feels. There is inflammation, but it's not in the nerves, and it's receding. You'll heal, unless you irritate it."

I start to ask him what he means by "crossed through," but before I speak, I catch a fleeting glimpse of the beach again, melting around me, then the nausea returns and I remember falling to my hands and knees, puking butterflies in the woods. We moved. Didn't he say not to move? I think I remember that, but I'm feeling sleepy again.

I try to keep the look of suspicion off of my face, but he notices. "It's all right. I don't expect you to trust me. You have no choice but to cooperate. You have no defenses, and no escape. You know full well that I could crush you with no effort right now."

So much for acting. I try to find any source of energy around me, reaching out to the walls and floor, though it takes a lot more effort to feel outward than normal. The rock feels totally different than before. It's not like real stone. Its energy feels just like that thunderstorm did. I ask if we're still on the beach, and this is just another illusion.

He says, "No."

I try to reach beyond the walls, but it feels like there is no beyond. What the hell is this place?

He says, "You're going to hurt yourself."

I ask why he cares. If he has me broken down, why is he helping me? The sound of my voice seems odd to me, like it's coming from far away, and I'm pretty sure I'm speaking unusually slowly. Why do my eyelids feel so heavy?

He says, "I still want through."

And that's it. The concern is not fake. It's just not compassionate. I'm being preserved because I have something the monster wants. And the Doc was going to kill me, because I have something the monster wants. The monster didn't save me; he hid me. The state I'm in starts to dawn on me.

I am thinking out loud, without realizing it. "If he had killed me, I wouldn't really have died. I just wouldn't be here. I'd be awake. I wasn't in any danger, so why did he look so sad?" Am I slurring my words?

The monster looks amused. "Wait. You think this is all just a dream? That explains a lot."


I glare at him. What kind of a trick is he playing now?

He says, "If you're just dreaming, why would I have to drug you to get you to sleep?"

I start to answer, but my mouth feels like rubber, and I can't keep my eyes open. Somewhere off in the distance, I can hear him saying something else, but I don't really understand the words.

I don't know what to say about either this dream, or the last one (which I blogged in the middle of the night) except that I woke this morning with the most horrendous headache, bad enough that I've taken medicine. I don't usually do that.

Aside from the headache, though, I feel oddly relaxed today. It may be because I've taken time off of work, but I can say I haven't felt like this in years. It feels like something is missing, but for some reason, I don't care.

On a side note, this is the first time I can ever remember that the realization that I'm dreaming has not been immediately followed by a massive panic response.

All the rage

I'm on my back in the sand. I don't know how long I've been like this.

I remember running. I remember getting hit in the face, and then feeling like I was falling.

I remember him laughing at me.

I can feel that time has passed. I don't know how much. I have to get out of here, now. I roll over onto my hands and knees, get up, and turn around to face the little building.

The sky suddenly darkens to almost black, and something behind me grabs my arms, pulls them back, and twists them up behind me in a painful hammerlock. Clawed hands have a tight grip on my wrists, holding them high against my back, so I can't move anything but my feet. It's not even been a second since I stood.

Something wraps around my shoulders, across my chest. A scream escapes me, as I'm yanked backward this way, through several feet across the sand. I try to pick up a foot and kick, but I don't hit anything except sand. As I'm dragged, his voice sounds in my ear, "You've worn out my patience. I'm done being gentle with you."

I'm pulled up against him, pressure put on my wrists, pain radiating across my shoulders, down into my chest, down my triceps. Quickly, something pushes my hair aside, and at the same time, there's a soft, wet, smacking sound, and a stinging sensation in the back of my neck, right up under the base of my skull. I start to raise my foot to kick again, get less than an inch, and I hear, "I wouldn't."

Something terrible is in that voice that wasn't there before, a gravity that sends ice down my spine. He also sounds like he's talking through teeth gritted around a cigar. I freeze. He continues. "I'm right in next to your brain stem. One slip, and there will be damage. You know what that means. You shouldn't move."

I very slowly rest my foot back in the sand. Does he have something sharp against my skull? Did he stab through the back of my neck with that... thing? My neck feels kind of... pinched... in that spot. I don't know how else to describe it. My heart is pounding, as an icy, sick feeling of dread fills me. I don't want to know, but I ask anyway. "What are you doing to me?"

He growls, "Be still."

My head hurts, and I feel dizzy. I know that something really bad is happening, and I know that it will be worse if I try to fight right now. If he damages the nerves in my brain stem, he could kill me. The thought makes my knees want to buckle, but I can't let myself fall.

I feel light touches on the back of my neck and head, and cold breath against my skin where the stinging sensation is. I feel his other arm across my chest pull tighter, pressing me against him, his hand gripping my shoulder tightly. There is pressure in that pinched, stinging spot. The dizziness is worse, and then suddenly, I'm overpowered by vivid memories, and dark, painful emotions.

It feels like being carried down a rushing stream, unable to control my movement, sometimes going under so that I can't breathe. I watch - almost relive - moments of conflict and pain that I thought I'd reconciled. Bitterness rises in my chest, resentment toward people who aren't even part of my life any more, as the memories move through my consciousness, browsed like the pages of a magazine, until the faces of four women come to the forefront - three I'm angry at, and one I'm angry about - and I am filled with cutting rage. I hear my own voice screaming in fury, obscenities mixed with inarticulate sounds. I try to subdue my anger, but I can feel something pulling from the other side. I try harder, and pain explodes inside my head. His voice sounds distant, "Don't fight me. You'll only make it hurt worse."

I struggle to control my emotions, using every technique I have to rein in my temper. It isn't happening, and the pain is becoming unbearable. I want to kill someone right now. I can feel myself actually leaking animosity. In the distance, I hear thunder, and then closer, his voice. "Very good. Now let it go."

Something cold is against the side of my neck, resting on my shoulder, on top of my hair. A familiar voice says, "Don't move, either of you."

I'm not moving, except my eyes. I look up to see the edge of a blade beside my face, running back beyond my vision. The other end is held by the hand of the Doc. His face is grim. He's not looking at me. I can feel the blade pressing against my skin. I can tell by the sudden stillness that it's against the monster's neck, too. It's cold, and painfully sharp, and in a blink, I understand that if Doc can't get me out of this, he means to use it on both of us. He's not willing to let this monster through the door.

No matter how logical it seems, I can't control how I feel about it. I'm hurt, feeling cast aside by a comrade instead of defended. If he cuts me, will I really die?

Resolve is not all I can see in the Doc's eyes. I see regret. There is also grief. He says, "Let her go."

Deep in my mind, a question rises that didn't originate from me. "Do you want to survive this?"
Of course I want to survive. I'm almost indignant at the thought.

I see a scene play out; the Doc and nurse talking, discussing my situation, deciding I've been compromised, corrupted. On the inside, I hear that raspy voice. "He's going to 'rescue' you, then kill you to keep the door safe from me."

I don't want to believe that. The doc is a protector, isn't he? But he has to protect the door, not me. My heart resists it, but the logic is there; why would he let me live, after I've been corrupted? I look at him. He won't look at me, but I can see on his face that the something is hurting him from the inside. His eyes totally betray what he's going to do. I'm as good as dead.

Something breaks inside, and the anger drains, wholly replaced by terror. Several yards away, lightning strikes the beach. Doc jumps, and I feel the burn of a shallow cut. His eyes turn to me, and I see surprise added to the other emotions. The hand on my shoulder grips harder. In my head, I hear, "Steady. Don't fight him. And for the sake of your life, don't fight me."

And then everything around me blurs, and fades. I hear the Doc shout, feel the blade start to move, and then it's gone. There is nothing but darkness. I can't feel anything. My body feels cold. I can't breathe. Panic rises in my chest, threatening to overcome my thoughts. I'm sure that I'm dead. There was no time, and the doc killed me.

Light floods my vision, and the pinched sensation returns at the base of my skull, then the feeling of my arms twisted behind me. My feet are on the ground, and there's an arm across my chest, a hand gripping my shoulder. We're surrounded by trees. There is no doc.

I feel the proboscis thing slip out of my neck, accompanied by a wet, popping sound. All of the strength leaves my legs, and I start to fall. He lets go of my wrists, and carefully lowers me to the ground, so that I'm on my knees when the nausea hits, very suddenly, and very hard. I lurch forward, retching forcefully, but it's not my lunch that I lose. With each gut-wrenching heave, I spew out hundreds of little black butterflies. Wave after wave of tiny winged insects flies out of my body, spiraling away from me, off into the forest. As I cough out the last ones, spitting the last delicate creature out of my mouth, I realize that the monster who brought me here, from whom I begged for protection, against whom I've fought viciously for days, is holding my hair while I puke. And what's that look on his face? Concern? That can't be right.

I notice that he seems to be getting taller, then realize I'm falling down, but instead, I feel an arm under me, and darkness closes in on my vision again.