Limbo

You need to stay the hell out of my dreams, you little shit.

You think you're so smooth slippin' in when you think I'm not looking, sliding your arm around my shoulder, and acting all cool, as if you'd been there the whole time.

But it's not cool. I'm pissed off. You can't just disappear completely without even a good-bye, or at least a final, departing nod and wink. You can't waltz out, as if you never knew me, never call, never ask about me, never send me as much as a "hey, sup?" And then mosey around in my dreams all night.

I didn't invite you in there, you asshole. I don't know what you're trying to prove when I catch you beside me, giving me that look, that grin, that sigh. Never fight. Never argue. Never start any wars. What fun is that? If you're going to hang around all night, the least you could do is make it interesting.

I think it would have been better if you'd at least tried to be ugly, tried to be mean, tried to put some closure on it. Instead of letting it linger there on the edge, never pushing it over...

Fate

We'd been told to pair off by drawing names from a jar. Half of us wrote our names on a slip pf paper and the other half were supposed to blindly reach into the mouth and call out what it said there. This was the way it had been played before, and there had never been any deviation from the method. Rules were rules.

You demanded to go first, insisting that you would be my partner. I smiled coyly and wished you luck, never thinking you'd get me. The odds were definitely against you. I was holding for out for Old Green Eyes, anyway.

But you always get your way, even in my dreams.

One by one, you rejected each person you drew.

"Not Nessa," you stated before tossing  each name to the side. "Not Nessa. Not Nessa."

Finally, you grinned when you found the one you'd been looking for. "Nessa!" you shouted triumphantly. You waved it in the air as you came to my side. "I told you I'd get you," you whispered into my ear and planted and kiss on my cheek. "It's fate."

You hate me

The right arm was mangled again. Mine, that is. Some kind of tendon or muscle or arm gut tethered the forearm to the elbow. Most of the fingers had been ripped away, and the remainder was a bloody, stumpy mess that was barely recognizable as my arm. Still, I wanted to keep it, so I held onto it with the left hand while I tried to run to safety. I heard the whoosh of bricks and wood as they flew past my head. I might have been breathing  in fire, or perhaps it was the heavy plumes of smoke that burned my lungs.

Dark clouds rolled into my periphery. It took a moment for me to realize I was suffering some sort of weird tunnel vision. I could only see a small circle of asphalt under my feet. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other without tripping over gremlins. When I finally did fall, it was you who caught me.

I rolled away from you, cradling the damaged arm against my stomach. It had been you who had broken it in the other dream. Had you returned to wrench it away completely?

You dragged me across the lot, ignoring the rocks and twigs and other detritus that were pressing into my tender skin. I didn't want to see you. I couldn't stand to think of the rage you were feeling. I didn't want to see the anguish in your eyes.

You lifted me up. For a moment, just a small moment, I thought you would embrace me, and I was happy, relieved, even. But that was just a brief moment. The bestial cry that came from somewhere deep inside you (or maybe it was from me. Thinking back, I can't be sure) frightened me back to reality. I couldn't look you in the eyes.

I went blind just before you tossed me over the edge.

Mood Swings

My first get-together at the new place on a warm night with a light breeze. A few friends from work and a few friends from out of town. We were all having a good time sitting in a circle in the garage with the overhead door open so we could enjoy the beautiful weather. Some edgy, raw music played in the background in contrast with our unified laid-back mood. Each guest had his favorite drink in hand.

Bubbles floated by, and we realized that as they popped the music became louder. We made a game of this, reaching up and popping as many as we could. Amanda used the cherry on her cigarette to stab them. When she did this, the song changed, and then the mood changed.

Something was wrong.

My guests started to hustle about and crowd around the edge of the garage, looking at something out in the neighborhood. I pushed through them. Bryan grabbed my arm to hold me back. His black eyes met mine with a fear, not of the scene he saw, but for my reaction to it. I pulled away from him, now desperate to see what had caught everyone's attention.

A freezing gust of wind shot through the garage and we pulled our heavy coats around us. About two inches of snow blanketed the ground, giving the neighborhood a false sense of peace. The world was dark and silent. I stepped into the snow, and then I was alone.

My house was gone. My friends were gone. There had never been a party. There had never been music or bubbles.

There was nothing but snow and silence.

Until I heard the gurgle. A familiar sound that I couldn't quite place, but soon enough I saw the man unconscious in the snow. The crunch of my shoes in the hardened snow echoed in my ears like the beat of my heart as I approached him.

I fell to my knees, distraught at the condition of my son. Blood pooled into the ice around him. Steam rose like fog, obscuring us from the rest of the world. A bestial, guttural roar ripped through the air, and a moment went by before I realized that the sound had come from somewhere deep within me.

My son lay lifeless on a freezing blanket of ice. When I scooped him into my arms, his pieces fell away. Somebody had chopped him up and now his arms and legs were rolling away like discarded shoes and socks. I grabbed at them and tried to put him back together in my arms. He could be fixed if we acted quickly enough, if I could scoop all the blood back into him fast enough, everything would be okay. Blue steam shot from his mouth, and one last gurgle rose from his throat. All the life escaped him then, but there was no convincing me.

I woke in the warm darkness of my bedroom, scooping the blankets toward me, scooping  the blood that wasn't there, grasping at air where my son's lifeless body had been.
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