Daydream

You come to me in a dream.

You come to me as a monster; a beastly, many-limbed thing bearing scales of judgement. In your night-drenched form I see my every failing. You chase me, and I run. 

We repeat this process night after night, until morning comes to wash it all away. And I am left to pull myself slowly from the shell of my bed and dress in uniform, the one with the tightly drawn collar. The details blur and obscure, leaving only an impression—an itch along the rivets of my spine. I pull my long hair into a tight knot and clean my face of the last traces of sleep.

In the pockets of respite from the beating of the sun and the toil of day, I dream. I dream in the manner of wake; aimless, hope-tinged, and wandering. Imagining that I am anywhere but here, in soot-covered slacks, working towards an end that will bring no great fulfillment. There is a woman out there on a stage; the spotlight shines incandescent, and her dance enraptures the crowd. But one day bleeds into the next. And the one thereafter.

You are there, each night. You, ever-growing, but never-ending in the haunt. You give chase, and we run through winding labyrinths and paths drawn in colours I can’t comprehend. Occasionally the path forks and we blind through fragments of days long gone. People and places, people and things; all of them, their edges blurred by the bleeding of time. The scales tell a story of missed opportunities that have in time become bitter deeds. 

Why didn’t you take the chance?

Why didn’t you accept the offer, even if it meant moving far away?

Why didn’t you hold her hand while she could still feel it? 

We run until the scene fades, and I open my eyes onto the slate grey of early dawn. I let the memory of you succumb to the schedule of things.

This, and then that. What a life I’ve carved for myself; an endless process of fitting pieces into place on a picture in which I’ve long lost interest. There are certain things you just have to do. It’s a fact learnt early on, yet one that ferments slowly. Still, those little dreams bubble over the surface, and in those gasps of time I am swept away. But the revelation returns as it always does. Reality swings in like a hammer - the one I use to nail boards into place and silence the boss's incessant buzzing. If only it were so easy to do away with dreams. And nightmares. You know this when you prey on me at night– I find in you my dreams distorted, a mockery made of all the what ifs and rose-coloured questions.

What if it were to stop?

One day the night terrors keep me pinned in bed, and I don’t make it to work. That same night, I greet you with a weary pace. Fear, too, has become a process. The days and nights continue like this, until I am spent. I tire of running and dreaming and all of it.

Then you are gone. The nights are silent and nothingness, and pass in a blip. Day brings with it no greater wholeness; the world is painted in shades of gray and the murky yellowing of unwashed sheets. I wait for an inciting incident– something to change, but the world around me loses all motion, and so have I. In the silence of those four walls, it’s just me.

Just me.

Dreams have a funny way of weaseling into the most stubborn of minds; growing like mold in the dark, festering in the cracks of old paint. And inevitably, I dare to wonder. You appear again, reinvigorated and roaring, biting at my heels.

I stop running. I feel your presence, ever-looming, cascading over me like ink on an empty canvas. The terrain before us crumbles until we’re left in blackness.

But as I turn to look at you, you only look back. You, the faceless terror, the monster without shape; you, plague of my nights, staring through impossible eyes. Eyes that issue a silent challenge. Daring me. Taunting me. Believing in me.

I never really knew who you were.

***

I come to you in a dream.

The girl runs with reckless abandon from a monster she knows well. In this world all unspoken things are made manifest. There is no getting ahead of it; no escaping what your own mind has conjured. Then, why does she resist?

The path is arduous and thorn-trodden. The scene shifts to remind of embittered hopes and present terrors. She hurtles through the air and smashes into wakefulness. Her loved ones revile her, warping into caricature demons. Failure is always one misstep away. Night after night after night. But nothing changes.

Until, at last, she grows tired of it all. The back of her vanishes, and I cannot find her. I am left all alone.

Still, I believe. I know she’ll come back– and eventually, she does, frustrated that she’s let even more time escape, not realizing that I am not going anywhere. She allows me to catch up with her. As the girl turns, she thinks that I am going to devour her. And perhaps, it's true; I am going to if she continues to pretend I don’t exist.

But instead, we only look at each other. In the ambient silence of the dreamscape, she dares to let fear flow through her, viscous and thick. She doesn't turn away. Her eyes, ablaze with a spark of hidden courage, bear a silent question. Who are you?

Do you see? How I follow you, and urge you on. How I give chase - pushing you on the path towards something more. You fit me into a box, call me fear and dread, but I contain multitudes. In daylight I shift and transform into a version of you that might exist, and you watch me with awestruck eyes as though I am a figment of delusion and not potentiality. The one who succeeds cannot exist without the one who fails; there are no dreams without nightmares. As the night gazes deep, and darkness pulls us into formlessness, you find the courage to finally see me. You dare to ask my name. But you already know the answer.

I am hope.

I am challenge.

I am the gnawing inside.

You turn away. The terrain changes again; the path before you is a mountainous spiral, vanishing into an endpoint you cannot see.

You dash forward into the breaking of early dawn, lightning at your heels, and I am right with you.