crash
I shot upright in my bed. My heart was pumping my blood around my body like I was in the middle of a race.
My blood felt cold as ice, too. I felt my arteries and veins in my guts and my skin pulsate and nearly vibrate as my mind pieced together reality and whatever the fuck that was.
I took a deep breath. I grabbed the sides of my bed. My therapist taught me a couple grounding techniques when this happens. Smell something strong. Eat something. Grab something sturdy and breathe. She lost me at the stuff about my childhood, though. Too murky. Too weird.
I think that’s what the dreams are about. Something related to it. Dunno.
I got out of bed just to go sit on another cushion of some sort. Couch, dining room chair, desk chair. My grounding techniques have also led me to realizing how often we sit. Or at least how often I sit.
I made my way to the kitchen, focused on coffee and whatever grainy mush I’ll make today instead of what truly started my day. On occasions I’ll get flashbacks to the dreams in my waking state, just to flicker back to life. It’s been getting worse lately, I’ve even lost a few friends because it happened in front of them. I think they want me to get more help than I already am.
click
I turned the coffee machine on. People love to talk and write and sing and dance about coffee and how they love it. I hate it. I think that’s partially why I drink it.
whirr
Sometimes I’ll let it get lukewarm just so I can chug it quickly. I treat it like an alcoholic treats vodka.
click
I sometimes consider myself an energy addict. I hate being asleep even for 20 seconds.
I poured the coffee. The one thing I do like about coffee is making it. I like the process. I also like the warmth of the machine. The warmth. Hm. I do like that.
My eyes shut quickly, like they were attached to a pulley and the weight snapped the cable.
Immediately I was floating in an empty abyss. My body was nothing and my mind was nothing. Then, light, and color. And noises. Not speech, yet, but ambience. Room noise.
I turned my head quickly. I was in a room I recognized, just barely. Not a hospital room, but some type of examination room or doctor’s office. Or something. Cold. White. Clean.
I felt fragile. Weak and brittle. My teeth chattered and my eyes hurt from the fluorescent lights above me. Suddenly a door clicked open.
“Good afternoon, Art.”
A man in a lab coat stepped into the room. The hairs on my neck stood up. Why am I scared of this motherfucker? I clenched a fist and saw it from my peripheral vision. It wasn’t much bigger than a cue ball. I instantly felt my heart rate increase. This isn’t now. This is back then. I’m small. Like 8 years old, maybe 9.
“Hi.” My child voice creaks. I sound sick.
“We just have a few more procedures and then you can go back home to mommy and daddy, okay?” The man said, a sinister smile creeping across his face. His eyes flickered bright green and then a deep red.
Involuntarily I lashed, and screamed. The coffee spilling over my bare feet and arms shocked me back to reality. This time, though, I remembered. I saw his face. I don’t know who he was, but I knew him.
Work was regular, boring. I came home to my empty apartment and watched some TV. I try to watch as much TV as possible. It keeps me awake.
I made dinner. I called a friend. I called another friend. Then, I called my sister.
“Do you remember anything weird happening to me when I was little, maybe around ‘95 or ‘96?”
“Art, you don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“You went missing for 3 months in the woods when you were 8 years old. You just showed up back at home one day, safe and clean. You said you lived in the woods, but mom and dad always tried to get you to tell them if you were anywhere else, don’t you remember? I can’t believe you don’t remember this. I think you should really talk to your therapist about tha-“
I hung up the phone. I felt like the walls were melting around me. What? I didn’t remember that shit. I cycled through the stages of realization rapidly. I denied it. She’s lying. It’s a prank. But the dreams.
Fuck.
I called back the first friend I called, James, and asked him to come over. I never have people over, but I couldn’t be alone. Not while this traumatic shit sinks back in to my memory.
James arrived within an hour and within 30 minutes of that we were well on our way through a 12 pack of Bud Lite and barely paying attention to the shitty comedy we chose to watch. I felt better about the whole thing with him there. At least I’m here. I can figure out whatever shitty trauma occurred to me in therapy, and hell, maybe I can write a book about it.
I laid back and felt at ease. The beers were likely helping too. My eyes involuntarily shut and I drifted off. Just for a second, but it was enough to flip the switch.
The man stood over me, syringe in hand.
“That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”
I felt hot liquids running through my veins.
Something foreign.
He moved me to some type of gurney and rolled me through a maze of hallways and labs. We entered a cavernous room with a large opening in the floor.
He guided me towards this circular porthole in the ground and helped me off of the gurney. I stepped onto a platform next to it.
“Alright, Art. It’s time for you to go back to Mom and Dad. But I will see you again. You’ll be home soon.”
He pressed a button and a beam of light shot downward, showing trees and leaves swaying in the night. I felt the pull of gravity release me as this beam carried me down, into the woods right outside of my childhood home. As I landed softly on the ground, the beam receded and I peered upwards. A giant spacecraft stood there, motionless and silent, except for an almost unnoticeable white noise. I watched as the edges of the object waved and flickered, precisely and quickly, making it camouflage with the sky. For all I know it’s still there.
My eyes shot open.
What the fuck?
My couch was wet with sticky sweat. James seemed to be long gone. Another friend freaked out by my fucking psychoses. That’s what it has to be, right? I’m going bonkers. That’s the only logical option.
I walked over to my phone to call 911. I need to be put away, or on meds, or something. As I sped towards the phone, I tripped on something. I turned and looked. One of my floorboards was completely loose, no nails or anything. I hesitantly grabbed it and lifted it up. I don’t know why I did that. Curiosity? Fate? Them?
The board lifted with a squelch. I was immediately hit with the smell of blood and shit.
What the fuck?
The empty rectangle revealed a tiny crawlspace. Inside, James sat slumped over. His eyes removed from his face and his appendages torn clean off.
I threw up my dinner. It felt good. I looked up at my window. A bright light shot into my apartment. A light white noise became apparent. It was time for me to go home.