October 26, 2010

• Last night I had a dream.  I was quite possibly the worst nightmare I have ever had.

  My husband and I return to the apartment with our new pet rats, named "Tim" and "Eric" so that we can continuously reference that "Rats off to ya!" episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor.  We set up their cage and happily play with them for a while before going to sleep.
  
  The next morning I wake up and kiss my husband on the forehead as I often do.  I go to work and notice that it is quite windy.  I spend the day in the lab, noting that my husband isn't on gchat and doesn't pick up the phone when I call him.  Around 3 PM someone comes into the lab and tells me that my apartment complex has been hit by a tornado.  I freak out and realize that my husband must have been hurt in the incident and that's why he hasn't been in contact.  I hop a bus back to my apartment only to find it completely destroyed and no sign of my husband.  A police officer is standing near the ruins of the office and I ask him if my husband had been taken to a hospital.  The officer asks if I want a ride to the hospital to see the survivors.  Survivors?  I ask the officer if there were any casualties.  He told me there was only one, a young man with blond hair.  He took me to the morgue and, of course, there was my husband with blue lips and a huge gash in his torso.

  The next few weeks were a blur of torture and agony.  I was alone, so alone.  I had lost everything in the world that was important to me.  The apartment didn't matter (except for the poor little rats that died after only a day in my care), but my husband was the only person I ever truly trusted and loved with everything I had.  I took two weeks off from lab work and spent time with my family and his, saw old friends, tried to reconcile everything in my mind.  It was no use.  My life was over, for all intensive purposes.  I contemplated suicide.  Eventually I resolved to get back to work and finish my project so I could at least say I did something with my life as I killed myself with my sharpest kitchen knife afterward.

  On my first day back to lab I sullenly get to work at my station.  There is no joy in my labor, because I know that when it is finished, so is my life.  She walks through the door and jovially greets me, telling me she heard about my husband's death and wanted to talk to me about everything.  I raise my eyes slowly, carefully.  I narrow my gaze at her smiling face.  I walk casually toward her.

  "What?  What could you possibly want to say to me?"

  "Well, it's just that...you know...he was what was holding me back from wanting a relationship with you.  I think now that he's out of the picture I could really be with you and not [insert name of her love interest].  Then you wouldn't have to be alone anymore."

  I stiffen.  She speaks of my husband as if he was a burden for everyone.  The love of my life, the only person I ever truly cared about, A BURDEN?  I smile, just like the Master smiles.

  "Are you sure that's what you wanted to say?"

  She nods, thinking she's made me happy with her complete lack of emotional understanding for the situation.

  "Alright," I begin to stride toward her, "if that's what you really want."  I hold my arms out as if to hug her, and as she steps nearer to me I force my hands around her neck and start choking.  My muscles ripple, my veins surge and my mind goes blank.  I squeeze tighter and tighter until she goes limp in my hands.  I snap her neck as she falls to the floor.  I grab a razor knife we use to open deliveries to the lab and flick the blade out.  I rake it across my neck and fall to my knees in my own blood, content.

  I woke up covered in my own sweat and immediately sat up and grabbed my neck to check for the wound.  A tear rolled down my cheek.  I then jerked my head around to check that I wasn't alone in the bed, and my husband opened one eye and smiled at me before rolling over.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  It was the most vivid dream I have ever had.  In the dream I experienced over a month of this horrible fake life that my mind imagined for me.  I'm still not completely over it, sometimes looking down at my hands and remembering the feeling of someone's neck snapping between them.

  I wish there was a way to turn off dreams when I'm not in the best place mentally.  I don't know how many more nightmares like that I can take before going insane...

  • 11:34 pm
  • Comments Off