Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

Your Dreams

You awaken from a dream-filled sleep, disturbed by all you have seen, blinking against the darkness that fails to resolve. The only sound a distant, beating heart. You aren’t sure it’s yours.  

Your house has many rooms and corridors. You go through door after door, but there always another awaiting you. You end up in the basement, but it is a cellar with a dirt floor and a low ceiling whose beams area layered with cobwebs. A salamander darts away into the shadows toward a tiny door. For a rat, but there are no rats here. You crawl through, dirt and cobwebs collecting on your back. A warren of tunnels opens up before you and you choose one. Something is gnawing at your ankle. 

You return home after many years, but everything has changed. The house that you grew up in is derelict, the roof falling in. Your mother is within doing the dishes, the plates and cups all blackened by fire. He’s out back, your mother says without looking at you. A man rides around on the lawn mower. He doesn’t acknowledge you. That’s your new father, your mother says, as the smoke rises from the grass. 

A tree grew from your loins, its roots spreading across the land, its boughs shading every hill and dale. The soil became untillable and people abandoned their villages, wailing about the lost sun. You held it all in your hand for the briefest moment, but then like water it all dribbled away. 

The sun has turned to ice, glittering in the darkness like a distant star. Fog blankets everything. Things move within it, just beyond your vision, as you hurry on your way. You meet on an empty street amidst the rubble of the last wars. We must rebuild, you say. Why, you say, with a shake of your head. It’s better this way.