… Another time, consciousness comes back to me. In a faint whisper of the wind, the window to the outside world has opened just slightly, enough so the fragile glass to my inner world has cracked. Ah, I had woken up. And in the context of which that happened, I did not wake up satisfied. There was fear, not just it, but another emotion of which I could not name, an emotion that perhaps in its brutality and faceless non-mercy, has sung just loud enough so the transparent vertebrae that surrounded my soul would give way to it. And so it did, and so, I have felt it strongly, strong enough that it cracked my heart in more than two pieces, matter of fact, more than a thousand, and stabbed my stomach over and over again. In between mundane routines that I had grown myself used to, in a way that was humanly mechanical and unusually robotic, I had a nightmare. Better to say, that I have been having a nightmare, more accurately as of my daily life. I have crawled in a nightmare and a nightmare has been my own skin for a few sundowns. One that lingers in the joints of my scarce body for a few hours before I can forget about it and wander normally with my usual life. Usual, could I really say that it is usual? The thought has come up to me a few times, and I cannot say that any of them has made me less afraid. Humanly? Could I have really understood that? I do not know, and until that thought keeps lingering, I am still inside the nightmare that I’ve had in my unconsciousness.
When the thought of the word “understanding” comes to me, I am brought back to the need of tracing down to the start - for a better word - the roots of what I interpret as a nightmare. This terror that keeps coming back to this carcass - I deem it putrid, dead. Laid down in a bed for two, as I look upon my only two hands, I cannot bring myself to stomach the sight. The utter nausea I feel upon looking at the blasphemy that was imposed to me, unconsciously, is enough to make them tremble under the faint light of the morning that has started to come. Revolting, it is, revolting until where these fingertips can reach. I lose my composure before even starting to process what had happened in the night that had been past me, so much that the saliva resting above my rough tongue starts to warm up, foam in a disgusting cloud of bad premonition. I had known that treading under these riskful grounds could have no use at all. I have gone sick. Yes, I could not explain it, but to sink deeper into this madness made me want to throw up. Not just that, it had made me want to crush my skull until these fragments that remained ever after my awakening would disappear from my memory right away. My stomach grumbled, but not from the hunger that haunted me as usual. Not quite from fear, I could risk speaking affirmatively to myself as well. Repugnance, worse than disgust in its glory. Repugnance tangled in the arms of terrible fear, drizzled delicately with uncertainty and wrapped among the arms of sadness. There was sadness too, even if I had not mentioned it. I feel like I had felt everything negative at the same time, at this right moment that I have woken up to be unlucky enough to be the one struck by this misery.
. That being said, unfortunate, disgracefully, I might still have to go over the details of what has unraveled. With my terribly damp hair, my head finally had jerked away from the pristinely white pillows. An instinctual reaction, nonetheless, an action that I had still taken. I think of my body and mind as two separate, in short, I do not take any more mind to the shell that I reluctantly own and that takes me places with the activeness of a swan.This body, that I do not know if I can still give the name as mine, and neither as of working. A few minutes had transpired in which I had just stilled in the moments of disbelief of what I had seen, silence, where I’d stared at my ceiling passively. Passive, as I was. Passive was the way I did not tell you what happened.
Passively I prayed, as I have grown used to resorting to, for this feeling to wither away, so I could brush it off and start my day, as I could always do, usual, but it stayed as that. Unmoving, I knew that my words had fallen to no one to listen. The faith that still remained in me was faint, a heartbeat fading just closely to my ears, kaleidoscopic, as if it would just slip by my thin fingers if I so much let go of it for a second… This sentence, from where do I remember it? Fragile, was the memory that still remained. Eventually, I would have to do something of my newfound nausea, for my stomach twisted and turned with every word I dared to think, my back solemnly rested against the crumbly drywall. Yes, I could feel the discomfort of paint peeling off and poking my spine, cold crawling until it reached the bare skin of my upper body - I must have taken my nightwear while I was asleep. Yet I did not know of this, I could not look down either, as the sight of my body would have brought me disgust. One of the meticulously, man-made stitches that littered my unsightly form, that creased, repugnantly, over my skin as centipedes that squeezed my limbs together to functionality. It was functional, I had to vehemently admit. Yet it was painful, yet it humiliated me at every step I took and tingled my mind to the border of insanity, somehow, it worked in ways I still had to understand. Not understanding, still, I felt like throwing up at the thought. Thought, the thought had hit me that I was nothing more but a reassembled pig. Should I have cut open my brain to see if there was really a difference? No, I must think like a pig as well. The disgust I had once felt doubled over, and I should have bent alongside it. The burning ache in my stomach was unbearable. In a pitiful situation I had found myself in, before morning ever had the chance to greet me.
… I must calm down. At last, you have come. I should no longer leave you waiting for the answer of what I had dreamed under the quiet moonlight. Sit comfortably, as my body calms down from its rise. You, who have seen this, I apologize. The sight of an insect all but writhing under its own mental disturbance must be quite a sight to witness. One breath after another, alas, even my own breathing has come to disgust me. I would like for this conversation to have risen in a more serene moment, because I apologize for the disapproval of what I will say from further here will cause you. Though not ever things are how we would wish them to be, I sigh at the mockery that this situation has been. For pleasure, imagine that around us, despite the terrific scenario that I have built in your imagination, lingers the scent of recently-boiled bitter coffee. I tell you this once, It should have, if the times were more forgiving, it is morning. Soon enough, if you stay long enough for the thought, grace me with the action of lending an ear, there will be, or so I hope. If I recompose enough, I have to, there will. Burning as a stove I’ve turned on countless times before the graceful sun has dawned upon this hemisphere, one that runs down your throat with conformity of a common individual. The taste should be about enough to ground us to the realities that surround us. If blessings are within us, then, the conclusions we’ll take are not as distasteful. Even as the worst unravels through our exchanges, you will still gobble it up, could I be incorrect to assume? Such is the human, consuming what is not of the best taste, just so the feeling of hunger ceases to haunt it. Likelihood it is, curiosity. I guarantee, then, you will step closer to hear what I have dreamed of. I ridicule your impulses in equality of which I despise my constant rumination.
Yes, the dream I’ve had. To this point, curiosity might have already strangled the will out of you, with hands that are righteous. I would have bored myself as well. The will to continue to find your path through this endless maze, to turn corners that to nowhere lead is one not acquired easily, I could say as much as to something you cannot acquire fully at all. Cold, white walls, dimmed gray under the lack of light, in which you take a gander as your restless eyes keep open due to something unwitnessable. Unexplainable, it is, the walls of this maze. Thus, you grow lost with each step you take into this world you have yet to find out the functionality of. What is to do with a man whose life is to find the exit path to a maze that he did not enter willingly? I realize that I have not left the state in which I found myself laid down with my chest wide open. The dove’s hands that traced and reassembled the cold ridges of my dead tissues was yet to realize that I remained awake. Though I did not feel at all the pain, as I never had come to the same way, My insides were known to me in a way that felt forbidden to nature itself. Seeing a picture of yourself as you were unaware you were being watched, and now you see it, the you that remains within other’s perspectives even as you submerge in your own thoughts. My mind floats light as a feather, towards the inevitable path where reminiscing lies. And do I despise it equally at each time that it happens, to be courted back to the very place where this life has once again started.
His arms, gloved, and may I never forget this image, coated to the elbows with thick ichor, running down and pungent in the small ambience where the heresy that gave origin to the beating of my heart was birthed. The blood - mine, was everywhere. The weird hue in which it rested is still to be comprehended by myself. Not quite crimson, deeper. A red so alive it glowed by itself. It reeked, stenched. Of decay, of sweat and tears, it reeked of dust and it had smelled like shame, of deep shame and it still had felt like sorrow. I cannot bring myself to picture his face. I remember only the feeling of horror of looking at the same semblance that I’ve grown up with, a sweet child, furthermore, committing an act so cold-blooded that even the devil would have been startled by it. The pale, paper-white skin that has ever so much worried me when our bodies were so little, smudged to no end with blood, there was endless, endless blood. If hell could so much have a sensorial feel, I would so much imagine this could have been it. I was terrified, and within my heart that didn’t quite beat alone (there was a machine to it, although I do not remember how it looked like, or the sound that it produced), I could be sure that Baron, too, was scared. Worse than murder, I realized, was resurrection. Rather than balancing myself through the purgatory, I would rather death to strike me a thousand times.
He has cried. Over my ambiguously stated body, he has weeped infinitely. Rather than the pain of the incisions that pierced my tissues, all I could feel, nothing else but this, was the dampness of my insides as his tears pattered over. I could see that he was trying to contain them at all times that he would enter the institution, when he was not paying attention to my face, I would open my eyes so that I could see his crying face, or a face that was holding back tears. At most times, realizing he has started to cry (which happened unusually late, the man was one to cry silently and to not jerk his body or sob, barely noticing until pointed out, must add that made him look freakish, for the lack of a better word, as younger, as his crying habits less resembled the usual children, the sequence has not grown to be less off-putting ever since), his shoulder would immediately tense, akin to a scared rabbit face-to-face with its demise, and quickly rush off to acquire countless instruments to prod the area in which had been stained, simultaneously to trying to see with dampened irises (i reckon it to have been difficult), before disappearing to the restroom for countless seconds, or minutes, perhaps hours, I could not know the passage of time. Aside from the rare sting I would feel when this had happened, I also recall that, on the first time it had happened, it was when I realized my body was frozen still. Because I could not reach out to him and tell him that he was crying, neither could I open my mouth to say that. No, he had anesthetized me, that I was sure. But the dull ache in which my withered heart felt at these moments, the cold, unchanging helplessness that struck me as shockwaves, could not be stopped. I would wonder, back then, what had saddened him enough so he blubbered for hours and would not notice? There always seemed to be enough of these for himself, and I imagined that witnessing a dead familiar would be another weight to bear, alone nonetheless. But I wondered, and if I could ask.
He has cried. Over my intestines, his sorrow has fallen, and over the arteries that littered my cadaver, his gloom has entangled, making its way through my blood vessels as a parasite, planting itself, rooting, rotting. Not knowing if I was the subject behind his sadness, I had felt more disrespected by his wailing than another weight for his tragic, soliloquous life. I was more than a reason for his sadness, I knew that much. Yet, my pulsating chest still oozed with grief. My stomach, in which, for a reason I could not know, he seemed to shed over the most, I had felt every single time that it happened, more than anything. Even as I live in a fully recovered body, this stomach of mine still weighs upon my carcass more than anything. Warm it remains, as if the sadness that once involved it was never properly washed away. Had he so much cried over this body, that the sadness that looms over him has been buried deep within my body in ways I cannot describe? The emptiness of my stomach aches more than that of when I was alive, for it reminds me of the emptiness of his heart. I have emerged from death hungry, eager to fill in this hole that was left in me. A hunger that is never sated. For how can I sate what I do not know I need? Hunger, it has haunted me ever since I had risen, once again, in my own bed, as if nothing had ever happened. Might Baron have laid me safely in such a place that could make me believe what I had experienced was a dream? Could he have, as well, wanted for it to happen with himself? Even if the knowledge would bring me nothing but even more grief, I urged, urged for it. Yet he has attempted to soothe the emptiness that comes with starting life once again, my stomach remains empty. A hunger not even his hands can pry away. Could he have sliced at it as if it was a stubborn wart? I plead, could he have anesthetized this sting that has yet to leave me alone?
Under the soles of my still warm foot, laid sand, grazed by the sunset, kissed by the sea and warmed by the light that the sky hid with its orange-hued clouds, drifting silently above my head. My eyelids did not lay as heavy as they do, I must assume, I was younger in the vision that I had. My skin still felt plump, and I remember, I could still run free with nothing to weigh upon my conscience. I think, then, I must have been a child, as the trees felt unusually more monstrous and larger than they now do. With wonder, I looked over the branches and to the birds that in their nests remained. I could not see my face, no, but the glimmer in my expression was palpable. The colorful feathers, somehow in ways I could not explain, fascinated me to a childishly fantasious degree. I wondered how it would be if I was, myself, a bird. In this dream, the weight of wanting to be a person like the others wouldn’t have haunted me until much, much later. The innocence made me want to transform into a gentle creature as a pigeon was, and I realize, I matured to wish for the innocence to still have that desire within my heart, Therefore, to be a child, or to be a person without pain. A child is nothing more than a small animal, fleeting, with a life as short as a breath. All but dependent on their mothers, and all but a few years await them once they leave their nests, until their time comes. To think about it makes you desire such a short-lived wonder.
My hands, outstretched, another wish of mine, was to reach for the nest and touch the birds. Why? Children want such foolish things, but there is no harm to the attempt. I jumped around, my small knees straining under the continuous hopping, I believed I could have reached it. One of the birds, the smallest, most malnourished one among them, chirped lowly, in a tone that could make you believe it was crying. And at it, I looked restlessly, hands where my eyes could see them, I wished to reach for it, to ask it why it cried. For what reason would a bird want to cry? I wanted to know, and again and again, I jumped, but no matter how much effort I put into it, I could not. My wish had changed, and the sun hadn’t even set. I wanted to grow up quickly, so I would be tall enough as the branches were, then I would reach the bird that so quietly cried, and calm it down. How long would it take? I asked myself, when the sun set, would I be tall enough so that it could be done?
Dreams are strange occurrences. In the blink of an eye, instead of a child reaching for a nest, my body had stretched in ways that should not be possible. I was, for sure, grown up enough. Maybe, this could have been considered a hopeful mirage, as my wish was magically granted by forces of my own mind, my own hopeful expectations. I could have, in that instant, considered it as such, if with my height, as well as with my more precise hands, I was able to reach the bird that made so much noises that bothered me. Maybe I had only wanted to shut it up, I could have not known what my wishes were. Even as my hands were outstretched, in a distance that clearly I could assume would make me reach the untidy nest, they would just not reach it all. I did not understand why that was, and it frustrated me. At the same time, I was a fully grown person, and a blatant infant. I was surged with rage, my fists, big and small simultaneously, curled into tight fists. My blood warmed, there was rage, and at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to harm the bird that of my understatement laid far. Rip away its feathers until I reached its heart and pulled it out of its chest, hearing it scream, for that way it would not be crying anymore. That was the way I could initiate change. For anger is better than sadness, no? I can understand it.
… No, I cannot believe that I had really done it. My fist had smashed the mass of life that was once a flying wonder of the skies. It felt warm, under my fingers, I could hear its screams fading away. Its peak poked at my hand, desperately, despair, it was, for its own life. But not with enough strength to harm me. Perhaps it believed that I could look at it for the last time? Agonizing, the death it faced was agonizing. Until the last second it breathed, I could see that it was afraid. There was, I reckon, a part of me that did not understand what it was seeing. Maybe it was the childish part of my soul that I carried within that dream, that could still not feel the pain of others, no other feeling other than its own. The child that asked and observed with wonder, trying to learn what it was not born with. The kid who feared and was detached from other people and wanted nothing more than to wear a mask that reassembled them. But as maturity has bathed me in its cruel waters, I now did understand. Not because I had been born with this blessing of a heart, but because I had learned to make one to beat as artificially as it. Nonetheless, I killed it. Brutalized it willingfully because I couldn’t understand why it was sad.
The tree where its dead shell rested melted under my fingers as I rested my palms over a branch to breathe. I could not understand, either, my heart beat more rapidly than it should. The skies around me morphed. Everything shook, even, I tell you, my own body. Instead of a tree artery against my skin, there was blood, a mass of it, everywhere. With a red so alive it dissected me without even the need of touch. It burned, it still remained warm, and that by itself caused me even more agony. I would not feel so much anguish over such a gory nightmare usually, so why, I ask, did it bother me so much? The leaves that adorned it fell to the ground as teeth and hairstrands, bloodied as well, and the sand under my feet bruised when I stepped over it. The harm would not stop the longer I stayed there, but I could not leave either, I was suddenly frozen, forced to all but be a witness. As everything broke down from what I’ve known it. The childish paradise I had created in which I had an innocent wish, my hands have turned it into that. If I closed my eyes, would it disappear? Me being a witness should be what made it so terrific. I closed my eyes, and felt something stab me into the stomach. It was cold, and it had a slow strength to it that you could only imagine was for torturous reasons. No, not even as I looked away, it hasn’t stopped to torment me. What could I, then, do so this pain would stop? The more I clenched my eyes shut, the deeper the pain got. And as I opened them, it was gone. So I had stabbed myself with the branch in which the bird had once laid, and abruptly woken myself up. I am sorry, for the dove that I had let down for countless cycles, but I was unmoving, unable to stretch far enough as to linger closely.
From the knowledge I have acquired over the years, an excerpt from one of many books I read flashed across my mind whilst I explained to you what happened, I should mention as well. According to the renowned psychotherapist and author of many theories, Carl Jung, dreams are their own nature (as well as an extension of ours, we do not separate from our dreams), as well as they hold their own language. Much of the material that the dreams hold does not originate from our consciousness, no, it couldn’t be said that dreams are just thoughts. Still, the dreams we have reflected on our deepest desires and biggest fears. For they are an unconscious repetition of them, dislocated between memories and cryptic as to what they mean about our mental state. There are dream archetypes, one of the only things we, as observers of the dreams, can really infer a meaning and assign an importance. These repeating patterns in our dreams (in my case, a nightmare, a terrific one), what could they mean? Jung could probably have used the dream in which I had as an example of how dislocation of memories in dreams works, as it becomes clear, once you read it once again, that this dream does not speak about a wounded animal only, nor does it lie only beneath the tree that had melted under my hands. There is more to it, and the more disturbed my life grew to be, the more these dreams have repeated themselves, come to bother me even in the peace of my sleep. Perhaps, this could be why I felt a stabbing ache once I closed my eyes in that realm. I am no psychologist, and neither have I been to one (despite, you might think, the obvious growing necessity for one, given my clear instability), but some connections are as clear and concise to make sure that no further strength is needed. I enjoy these easy rational paths, even more, when they are not bloodstained and taste of vomit.
... Just like in the dream I had, I could still not reach the salvation right in front of me. There seemed to be something that I forgot. My fingers were wrapped around it, but I was blindfolded. What… could it be?
Part 2
