Day 2. My sleep
places its skeletal fingers over my benign dreams and smothers them out. There
is nothing sweet left but the familiar remains of yesterday’s tragedy corroding
the inside of my pretending walls; painting its corruption on the surface of my
many moons. In the background I can hear children crying as I walk down a long
hallway filled with black windows and black blinds. Does it matter which door I
open? Every room is waiting to be just
the same, isn’t that how nightmare’s work? It doesn’t matter what you do or
where you go, the same scenario waits for you? As I walk in I watch the
darkness walk out and the darkness was everywhere, filling up every corner as
well as the silence. There was only one chair for me to sit in which was conveniently
placed next to my perfectly poised nightmare.
As scared as I was, I could laugh at the energy he took to present himself with such properness; black suit, legs crossed, he even patted my chair as a gesture for me to come sit down. I could only smirk at how how well-mannered he appeared, knowing that it was a matter of time before he impolitely took over my sleep. It’s hard not to stare at what’s haunting you, the same way it’s hard not push a button that says “don’t push.” Fear and curiosity is a bold tonic, you’re somehow left with a feeling of nausea just to be addicted still, hanging on to every moment, waiting for the chance to get one more look of its scare once more. My pupils crawled to the corner of my eyes but were met by a beaming bold stare already hovering over me, forcing me to fall over in my chair. He looked at me until his mouth, stitched and sewn, formed a long winding contorted smile. I knew then, I was being taken under my will to a place of horror and unrest.
My nightmare was the permanent clue that my shoes were stuck to. I was the hopeless observer, the distant dissector of the chaos at Sandy Cook Elementary. Why am I here and why am I getting a front row seat? But this is what nightmare’s do right? They take a piece of reality that you fear, amplify it along with your weaknesses, make you utterly useless and when you get to the point where you’re about to die, you wake up. It’s been a long time since I had a nightmare or remembered that I had a nightmare. I mean I’m talking since I was a kid and I think it’s because I’ve somehow I learned to control it. All too quickly my anger started to dissipate the inheritor of my fears and I was fighting for an alternate course to a massacre that was replaying itself in my thoughts. This time, I looked down and my feet were free, my right hand now held a weapon. I looked up to see the gunman a couple of feet in front of me and he was looking in the other direction. I looked at my weapon and I looked at him. I ran lightly like the floor was made out of feathers and just like that I watched him fall to the floor. I remember another scenario where I shot him in the leg so that I wouldn’t kill him just so I could lecture him for hours and THEN I killed him which sounded a lot more like me anyway.
I just wanted to be there; to run in just in time and save the day. I know so many people wanted to do that too; just to get in there and save those beautiful babies. I kept seeing them line up preparing to die. Can you imagine your fear for a moment? Now imagine how much greater it had to be for them and no one was there to hold them or love them. I realized it was a dream. I was having a dream. Whether it’s from a massacre of multiple children or a young victim of violence in the streets of Chicago, in my dreams I could’ve saved them and protect them. I could’ve saved them all… in my dreams. It wasn’t until I woke up that I realized this is the real nightmare. Sometimes it is our very reality that can be the true nightmare.
As scared as I was, I could laugh at the energy he took to present himself with such properness; black suit, legs crossed, he even patted my chair as a gesture for me to come sit down. I could only smirk at how how well-mannered he appeared, knowing that it was a matter of time before he impolitely took over my sleep. It’s hard not to stare at what’s haunting you, the same way it’s hard not push a button that says “don’t push.” Fear and curiosity is a bold tonic, you’re somehow left with a feeling of nausea just to be addicted still, hanging on to every moment, waiting for the chance to get one more look of its scare once more. My pupils crawled to the corner of my eyes but were met by a beaming bold stare already hovering over me, forcing me to fall over in my chair. He looked at me until his mouth, stitched and sewn, formed a long winding contorted smile. I knew then, I was being taken under my will to a place of horror and unrest.
My nightmare was the permanent clue that my shoes were stuck to. I was the hopeless observer, the distant dissector of the chaos at Sandy Cook Elementary. Why am I here and why am I getting a front row seat? But this is what nightmare’s do right? They take a piece of reality that you fear, amplify it along with your weaknesses, make you utterly useless and when you get to the point where you’re about to die, you wake up. It’s been a long time since I had a nightmare or remembered that I had a nightmare. I mean I’m talking since I was a kid and I think it’s because I’ve somehow I learned to control it. All too quickly my anger started to dissipate the inheritor of my fears and I was fighting for an alternate course to a massacre that was replaying itself in my thoughts. This time, I looked down and my feet were free, my right hand now held a weapon. I looked up to see the gunman a couple of feet in front of me and he was looking in the other direction. I looked at my weapon and I looked at him. I ran lightly like the floor was made out of feathers and just like that I watched him fall to the floor. I remember another scenario where I shot him in the leg so that I wouldn’t kill him just so I could lecture him for hours and THEN I killed him which sounded a lot more like me anyway.
I just wanted to be there; to run in just in time and save the day. I know so many people wanted to do that too; just to get in there and save those beautiful babies. I kept seeing them line up preparing to die. Can you imagine your fear for a moment? Now imagine how much greater it had to be for them and no one was there to hold them or love them. I realized it was a dream. I was having a dream. Whether it’s from a massacre of multiple children or a young victim of violence in the streets of Chicago, in my dreams I could’ve saved them and protect them. I could’ve saved them all… in my dreams. It wasn’t until I woke up that I realized this is the real nightmare. Sometimes it is our very reality that can be the true nightmare.
