Panic and paralysis. Eyes darting back and forth, staring at the blank ceiling. Steady breathing that didn’t match the terror in in his heart. The paralysis lifted. He could move. He reached for the water by the bedside. He could feel the sweat from the nightmare.
The spinning tube. Black, with purple and blue dot.
Dizzying. Oh, so cold!
He felt like he was always trudging through this shitshow nightmare; trying to make it out the other side unscathed. With a revolving cast of sound and light that he could invariably count on.
Each night it was the same.
SLEEP. DEEP.
Then the tunnel. The tunnel was rotating in an endless disordered fashion. Always terrifying and somehow still unexpected. The sound in the tunnel, it made him sick to his stomach. Calliope music.
Every time it was the same, he looked down at his own feet to steel himself against the disorientation…but when he looked up it was different. Different in the same way.
Repeatedly. Consistently.
The doors appeared on either side of him. The tunnel began to fade, the purple and blue lights danced and dazzled at the doorframes.
He would approach, he had to approach. Any way out of this nightmare, any door through which it could end was a blessing.
This was hell.
WAKE.
Morning light. Water on the bedside, he couldn’t drink it quick enough. What had happened? What did it mean? Why the same dream night after night after lonely night? His life was plain before this, boring even…or at least that which he could remember of it.
SLEEP. DEEP.
The tube, the twist, the sights and the sounds.
The feet and the fortitude. The door to the left.
Wrong choice.
Before he could force it open he saw a pair of sharp white lights hit his vision from the left, by the time he had turned they were gone.
Silence.
No calliope music here, just darkness in the tunnel and dull spinning.
It was a failure, he felt it deep in his core.
A reset. The tunnel, the music, the blue and purple lights dancing.
Two doors up on the right. The sweat dripping from his brow.
The music intensified as he twisted the doorknob. Lights from every angle. Blinding and white. The sound was too loud. The luminescence too strong.
The cry of a child and grinding breaks.
The bright white lights came right for his face as he was forced out of the room. The door slammed shut. Backwards through the tunnel.
Awoken and gasping for breath.
What did it mean?
That night.
SLEEP.
He persevered. He fought back the nausea and pushed forward. He ran.
The fourth door on the left. The lights quivered. The music reached a steady pace.
He barely touched the handle as the door flew open on its own.
A burst of cold air. Snow.
A car. A car driving on the wrong side of the road, obscured by snow and sound. The sound of a music box in the back. The smile on a tiny girl’s face as she daintily touched the dancing figure.
The screeching breaks.
Bright white and blinding lights. All sound dissipated.
This time he would make it. He would make it if he had to throw up. He would make it if it if the force of the tunnel broke his legs. He would make it if that same force broke his mind.
The last door on the left. Hazy lights. Slow and distorted music.
He had to force the door open, and thank God he did.
It was normal. It was cold. There was snow.
In a car, it was a car…the blinding white lights were his own headlights reflecting from the snow. He turned to the back. It was his daughter. Yes, he remembered her. He remembered everything for a brief moment. She was playing with the old jewelry box that Papa Joe had given her. This was bliss. The car, it topped the hill. The headlights blinded him. She dropped the toy box and screamed. Lights. Bright and dancing. Collision. Sudden and blazing. It was an accident. The kind he could never forgive, could only relive.
Skidding. The slowed melody from the music box, playing at .25 speed. Her cries. His frantic hands grabbing for life in the cold. His soundless screams. The blue and purple dots that obscured his vision.
Only death here.
Too much pain. Too much reality.
Forgetfulness is a blessing.
Back to the tunnel, to the music and the dancing lights, back to the sweat on his brow. Back to the sweet forgetfulness.