Dreams in Insomnia

I have been awake for four days now.

I have seen the light drain from the apartment like blood from a corpse and then, in the early hours, slip back in like a guilty spouse returning to the marriage bed.

On day one, a glass, trailing water smudges across the polished wood, moved 5cm towards the edge of the coffee table and fading chair.

On day two, I discovered an unlit cigarette in an ashtray on the floor beneath the bookshelf. I have never smoked.

On day three, liquid light slipped in under the front door, like some lost organism looking for a way to a familiar place. I reached for it, entranced by the golden substance. At the point of contact, it silently withdrew.

Day four – shouting in the lobby.

 

 

I have been away

I have been away.

I am not sure where, but I went to bed one night and woke up three and a half months later. Perhaps “returned” might be a better word. I am not certain.

There are fleeting memories of white lights, voices from across the room, yet emanating from right beside me, the feeling of movement, rapid acceleration and deceleration. Sounds.

I know that once I called out:

– Bruce?

I recall a response, but the content and import now escapes me.

Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming, seems to resonate through me, hour after hour, minute after minute. The words, the lines, verse flow across my consciousness like mercury in a bowl.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

My room, the curtains drawn, the the bedside table drawer remains a quarter open, my room remains the same.

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me…

I awoke in the early hours of the morning to the sound of the ocean rushing up onto the shore, shifting sand and the sush of water folding back upon itself, the silence of time shifting like a ghost through the distant universe.

Later, I discovered a sliver metal lighter, just inside my apartment door.

The time machine is back.

Bruce is not.

In Dreams

I dream of flying – floating above the earth in the warm updrafts, touching clouds, tracing the curve of the ground below. The world in miniature. Tilt-shift photography.

Once I dreamt I could walk on water.

I wonder if fat people dream of being thin. And in their dreams, do they run distances, walk to the store? Do they dance? Has the guilt gone? Do they look at their bodies and know this is what they were made for?

When I awake from sleep, as the subtle fingers of the dream slip from my memory, I always have a disappointment, a sadness that lingers with me, following me like a weight around my ankles.

Dead Ends

The trail has run cold.

I returned to the man with the photograph on his wall of the albino, to discover that he was gone. Seems there had been way too much time to think in my abscence.

In his place was, what I understood to be a Vietnamese family. They did not know the previous tenant. The place was empty and no, they did not have a pot-bellied pig in the back garden.

They were lying.

I heard the thing in the yard, rooting around in the bushes.

 

When I awoke

When I awoke this morning, there was a wooden ladder outside my door.

Just leaning there against the wall, loitering on the landing.

There is something sinister afoot, mark my words.

I met a man.

I met a man this morning,  in the course of my business.

Right at the front door (which he only opened about twenty-two centimetres), there above the light switch was a colour photograph of himself, along with a daywalker, who I am sure, was in my room, some time back. No smiles, no fun. Pure male macho pretension.

I asked, as a matter of interest, who the albino was, pointing at the photograph and was told it was none of my business.

Sadly, that was the incorrect answer.

Now, normally I am not a pushy man, specifically in my line of business. I feel that common courtesy and respect pay the bills (literary and figuratively). When, however, pushed by a lack of humility and grace, I do tend to become a pushy man, as it were.

Needless to say, I shall be returning at a later date to the address and occupant for more than the initial asking price and a little bit more information on the photograph.

I need to give him time to think.

And time to clean my shoes.

 

Mother Speaks

I heard the voice of my mother, calling to me as if from a long way off.
Last night, as I was dropping off to sleep, I heard her call.

“Hello? Hello?”

That was it.

The screen of my telephone was lit up on my bedside table and then nothing. The phone went dark again.

I lay in the darkness listening to the Belieber in the apartment above me move things around, boxes containing the weight of her world.

This is the first time I have been able to understand the voices from my phone.

 

Spoken in the past

I dropped my cellular telephone in the lavatory a few nights ago.

After fishing it out (wearing rubber gloves, naturally, as I was not about to flush) I dried it in the sun for a couple of days.

I was told it would never work again, but it does.

To a point.

Odd thing is though, when I switch it on, the screen goes grey and the telephone emits a sound much like voices carried on the wind. I am unable to make out what is being said and it is as if the voices have travelled down the ages, through time itself, perhaps. Like the speakers have long since gone, but their words remain, out in the ether.

I place the phone next to my bed at night and listen to the voices in the dark.

It helps me sleep.

I am not sure why.

 

Fear

I have an abiding fear:

What if I was lost and no one noticed?