I had a dream last night that I can’t seem to shake.
I find myself stuck in a room with white walls and no windows, and I know in the way that dreamers sometimes do that I haven’t slept in days. In the corner of the room is a lone toilet and a sink, and in the opposite corner is a stack of what I think is supposed to be food. In the center of the room are five green velvet wing-back chairs facing each other in a large circle around a drain, but most interestingly, the concrete floor is covered in about 4 inches of water. The room itself smells of human desperation overlaying something cloyingly sweet, like someone who does not know the smell of flowers was asked to create them. To my surprise, in my time spent looking around the room, I only now notice the others there with me. There are only three, and we are all wearing the same dirty scrubs. A woman has made her home by the sink, going through the motions of washing her hands while no water comes out of the tap, her eyes glued blankly to her hands and her jaw hangs loose, leaving her mouth slightly open. One man hides behind a chair, stroking it softly and whispering to himself in a language I don’t understand. The last man sits facing one of the empty corners, radiating something I don’t want to think about. Hours pass, the water in the room making everything constantly damp. I walk to the center of the room to inspect the drain, nothing is blocking it, why won’t it work? I use my fingers to dig at the screws holding it in place, I try and pull at the grate, anything. Time begins to skip, much like when you start to fall and catch yourself. I find myself jerking back at strange intervals before I’m quickly sucked back in. By the time I’m able to come back to myself, I’m left to stare at my ruined hands in horror. The pain is unbearable, and the sight is worse. I’ve ripped the skin of my fingers down to the bone, and ragged flesh hangs from my knuckles. When I look up, I see the man in the corner is staring directly at me over his shoulder, the other two have not moved. The man beckons me and I have no choice but to go. His eyes follow me until I sit next to him, then he returns his stare to the wall once more. When he finally speaks, his voice sounds like a crumbling wall, “when you don’t sleep, it wakes up.” I try and ask him what he’s talking about, where we are, anything, but the words don’t come. He looks at me again and I don’t need to ask, I can see it. He repeats himself anyway, “when you don’t sleep, it wakes up.” His eyes were not a color, I'm not sure what I saw were even eyes anymore, it was pure madness. I couldn’t seem to tear myself away from him and he continued, “you feel it in your dreams, its chains rattle in your sleep. It’s waiting inside all of us. When you don’t sleep, it wakes up.” He took my ruined hands in his, without ever looking away, “it makes you strong.” He released me and went back to staring at the wall. With nothing else to do I stood, everything felt hazy and my hands didn’t hurt anymore. The man sitting behind the chair was staring at me now, whispering still and stroking the chair slowly, waiting for me to come to him. When I sat down his words became clearer “A fronte praceipitium a tergo lupi, et loqueris contra solis” over and over again. The more he spoke, the clearer his words became and I remembered them like a lullaby lost to childhood. A precipice in front and a wolf behind, yet still you speak against the sun. I repeated these words back to him, and he stopped chanting, pointing to the florescent light hanging directly above him, “adversus solem ne loquitor.” There was a dampened fear there, but more prominent was a certain understanding. Speak not against the sun. This was our sun now, this room was our world, there is no god here, and there are no beds. He turned back to his chair and the chanting resumed, lulling me further in. I stood up again, the woman had now turned to me, her unhinged jaw mumbling. I walked over slowly, the water was still. I reached out to the sink to balance myself and the haze briefly lifted when I heard the clack my bones connect with the sink, but the fear barely jumped in my heart before I was lost again. The woman looked down at my hands, then back at me with something as close to pity as dead eyes can get. Through her mangled jaw she managed to say, “it happens slowly, then all at once.” Her hands stopped their cleaning motion and she held her arms as if to hug me. Her own ragged nails had gouged deep furrows in the skin of her arms and chest. I suddenly realized, she didn’t need tap water, the sink was plugged with her skin and filled with her blood. I continued to watch as she dipped her hands in and resumed her cleansing motions. I watched until I could watch no more, Then I began to pace again. Back and forth and back and forth, listening to the murmurs of the water. After a while, they asked me to sing. I could deny them nothing, so I sang a siren song:
“Go to sleep you little baby, go to sleep you little baby, everybody's gone in the water and the dawn, didn't leave nobody but the baby.”
Again
“Go to sleep you little baby, go to sleep you little baby, you plus me and the devil makes three, don’t need no other loving baby.”
Again
“Go to sleep you little baby, go to sleep you little baby, come and lay your bones on the alabaster stones and be my ever-loving baby.”
My voice grew raw and horse, my legs were numb. White wall, walk, turn, white wall. I only noticed it when the sound of the water changed; my feet now match my hands and the water mingles with my blood.
And then I woke up, heart racing and drenched in sweat and wondered,
if there were 4 people and 5 chairs, who managed to escape?
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