The following are some of those dreams I can clearly recall. Whether discerning readers believe them so is up to them, but they were, for me, just as I have written them. I will keep adding to this post as and when, but for now I offer you, kind reader, a small window into a mind many have called strange.
Storm in a Hallway
A block of flats, the outsides shifting, an amalgamation of dwellings past and imagined. Now the viewpoint shifts to my dream body, and I am standing in the flat, afraid, bladder tight, unable to still my hands, marching around the place for no particular reason. I know that there is trouble coming. My Mum has mentioned it, who is crying somewhere in the flat. My Dad is here too, which isn’t right, because he and Mum split years ago. The trouble is of the worst possible sort. Thugs, inbound. Bad thugs. Rich thugs, presumably, as my Mum got something off them and now, they want something back. What they want back I do not know, I don’t think my Mum has mentioned it. A flash, a vision of something, a car drive to some distant location, a man handing my Dad a pistol, middle of the range, semi automatic, shoots straight as far as your average corridor. In short, the best tool for the job, within his means. He hasn’t tried to get me out the way. But he has tipped loads of stuff into the hall, creating a rudimentary barricade. I’m in the kitchen now, off to the side.
The thugs arrive, and the first bullets fly. My Dad isn’t a brilliant shot, but the mother of his children, and one of them, are under threat. Every shot is fired with a mixture of gunpowder, grit and mammalian protectiveness. He does damage, but they are many, and experienced. Gunpowder thunder hurling bullet lightning makes a tempest of the hallway, but they manage to force a way in as Dad changes clip, inexpertly. Now they crouch on the other side of the barricade, hard men, some rangy, some bulky, their profiles shifting, but all wearing cheap tracksuits, ready for the nearest bin when their business is done. Another opens fire, another storm ensues. Another two fall, though my Dad’s face is twisted with pain rage and fear. Neither he nor I can hear much of Mum’s screaming anymore, not over the roar of the storm.
The thugs advance, clambering over the barricade, and see me. They start shooting and Dad shoots himself over the barricade, straight into them, screaming at me to get away. I do so, hating myself for it, I barge a door that should lead to my Mum and enter Scene Two.
Girlfriends.
A school science lab. The weather, and the time, is in flux. Outside the square, plastic framed windows, days and nights of every conceivable kind flash by, till I look to my left. There is an ex, sat beside me in a school science lab we never studied in together. We never even knew each other in school. The weather is still now, overcast, grey. The girl before me seems somewhat grey too. Not in colour, in temperament. There is no passion in her. No vibrance to her character. Oh I know she wealthy, I know she can provide for me, I know she desperately wants me. But her every plea only hardens my heart against her, whining and piteous as those pleas are. She’s barely capable of showing any other emotion, I remember. I stand and turn, to face the windows, where the colour is leeching out of everything, little by little. She plucks at my arm, desperate. I keep on facing the window, stone to her pathetic pleading. On she pleads and plucks, and now the plucks are harder. They hurt, on both arms. I look to my right, and there’s her duplicate, plucking, whining, but with each whine more and more teeth appear in some nightmarish mimic of an ingratiating smile.
The last bell rings. Home time.
Her eyes start to rise in her head as another appears over the desk, leaning, stretching toward me. At my hip, a sword’s weight materialises. A warning. Two of them seize my arms as the original sheds her hair with her face, fair skin splitting, eyes sliding back, arms falling away, human shape shrugged off as a grey, whining, wormlike thing goes for a bite. I whirl, sword now in hand, freeing my arms and slashing heads from the horribly mutating, munching ex girlfriends. I don’t want this! Freedom yes, to be single, yes, but not this! Eyes finally slide off the grey worm’s backs as the whining starts to come from thousands of throats. ‘Please’ they whine and hiss at me, some still in her frail, weak-chinned shape, for now. I oblige, with a sword, hacking and slashing, desperate. Alone, amidst uncounted whining, hissing, bloodthirsty ex girlfriends.
Whispered Words 