In my dreams, I’m driving.
Bright orange lights shine through, almost blinding. When I wake up in my bed, I swear it is real, but I can’t drive.
In the morning I don’t think about driving too much, because I think about her. Her, who used to be here every morning. Some mornings, I don’t even wake up. When I think of her too much, I don’t sleep. I can’t.
On those mornings I don’t spoon my coffee into the mug before I pour in the boiling water. I just tip the jar in. Bitter and black, no milk, no sugar. Drink for the energy.
My stomach is my enemy. My mind is my enemy. My ally is my feet. Walk for work, walk for leisure. I make my money on my feet, guiding tours at the castle. After closing hours, I walk the length of the grounds in circles, alone. Then it’s fine to go home and dream of driving or stare at the ceiling.
I can’t talk to my family any more. I have no friends. It’s always the same conversation. ‘How are you holding up?‘. They all want to talk about her, or more aptly the lack of her. The only people I can talk to are the tourists. They want to talk about the castle. I like to tell them about the castle.
When I wake up for too long my vision starts to fuzz and nothing quite feels real.
After a long stretch of waking, my boss tells me to see a doctor. I lost my castle access card, and I’m forgetting to shave and getting irritable on the tours. I see the doctor, and she prescribes me some tablets for the short term and refers me to a sleep specialist. The referral fails to come through and I don’t want to take the pills after a quick research, so I buy a bottle of whiskey and drink about half of it. So now I’m drunk as a skunk but I still can’t sleep, so I decide to take one of the pills but I still can’t sleep so I decide to take all of the pills and drink all of the whiskey.
And suddenly I’m in my dream and I’m driving. The bright orange lights are shining, they’re almost blinding. But I can’t drive. And I wake up but I’m not in my bed and it is not the morning. It’s sunset, so I’ve been in a slumber for at least fifteen or so hours. The longest sleep I’ve had for as long as I can remember. I’m not warm in my room, I’m shivering out on a bed of wet grass.
I’ve never been to this place before. A vast lake burns red with the setting sun, banked by unkempt greenery and a sea of trees. The woods have but one clearing: a narrow gravel road. Beside me is the car I’d driven there in so I get in to back to out, but I don’t know how to drive, so I fiddle around and now the car is racing into the lake. I leap out onto the cool grass and feel the splash as the car plunges to the depths.
I search my pockets and find that I don’t have my phone or any food or drink. I notice I’m so hungry and thirsty, so of course I’m unprepared. What I do have is my door key and a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
I don’t smoke but I light one anyway. Then I turn and start my wat down that gravel road because where else is the way out going to be?
And I’m walking and there’s no one else around and it’s getting darker by the minute. I keep walking the path but I see no end in sight as it winds and weaves. I come to a break in the treeline and I start down that direction, though I’m not sure why.
Something in me sinks as I take in the noise of the forest. I feel dread and I feel heavy.
There’s no path in the woods and I’m not taking care of where I’m going. The fact that I may need to re-trace my steps is not something I’m considering.
I must be passing a nest because I go to stub a cigarette out on the ground but get bitten by a disturbed rat instead.
It stings and I note that I’ll probably have to check back in with the doctor when I get home. I don’t want the Plague or whatever disease it might be carrying.
It’s not much further before the voice in my head that told me to enter the woods tells me to stop. And there’s a familiar smell that envelopes me and it is putrid.
I can hear the rats and I’m being pestered by the flies so I use my lighter for a torch and squat.
The ground is broken and a figure sits, half above the earth. The face is gone from decay or the vermin but I recognise her from the pink pyjama top, mostly still intact. And I praise God that He has guided me here. That I may now lay her to real rest. That her family might get justice. That I might have peace.
As I’m standing here, I drop my lighter. I scramble for it and grab a laminated badge. It is my access card for the castle. I quickly pocket it, turn and start my way back to the gravel road. My walk back there is effortless because I know the way. And now I’m getting clarity and I’m thinking about dreams I had and once forgotten.
I’ll have to find my way back in the daylight to resecure her grave.
Maybe I’ll sleep better now that I’ve found the place I buried her.