Post by woodsy on Feb 22, 2013 5:23:46 GMT
The
world swam around him, and it was dark, pregnant.
Soon,
the darkness gave way to a sterile white, clean and
dead.
Nothing existed,
he didn’t exist anymore. Or he hadn’t before, it was confusing at
times like these. It was prebirth nothing, warm and slow, as if the
air was jelly around him. This warm emptiness stretched out into
void, forever more. Soon, though, the nothing gave way to something.
Sight. Dark blurred shapes looming like ominous pillars, going up and
down into forever. The shapes into trees, endless trees. But sound
never followed, the world lifeless, not a single chirp of an
insect.
He was having the
dream again.
It started as it
always did. He was in a huge forest, so massive the edges just seemed
to fall off the world into the fog. The fog, god, the fog. He could
feel it with every breath, sticky and warm, much more like a heavy
steam than a fog. It layed heavily in his throat as he moved forward.
Hell; it could be backwards, how could he know? It wasn’t like
anything could be discerned about the place. Except for, of course,
the trees.
Oh, lord help him,
there were a lot of them. All around him, there were trees. He put
his hand out to steady himself on one as he moved. It gave, not hard,
but soft, like flesh. It was warm like flesh as well, and smooth. He
held his place, and a faint heartbeat followed. Tum, tum,
tum.
Something
caught his attention in the distance. A familiar shape, darting from
tree to tree. There it was again, the watching shape, looming. It was
a shadow in the distance, a shade darker than the trees; barely
formed, seemingly looking at him. The thing appeared to slide away as
he gravitated to face it, if only slightly. It was a lump of grey in
the fog, like a charcoal sketch on paper, left as if the artist
decided he was bored with it halfway through.
As
always, he started walking in its direction. It was the same as the
last 17 years of his life.
He
tentatively moved forward, the underbrush breaking apart in silence
under his boot. As if on ice, the thing would glide away, keeping the
distance between equal. It never wavered, closer nor farther. It
moved, actively staying in sight but just on the edge, as if taunting
him. Saying ‘come, find me, play with me. Be with me.’
It
would dodge about, avoiding his view and kicking up dark shadows. He
sighed, taking the warmth into his chest before exhaling. Not again,
he thought, as always. Not again.
Approaching
the God damned thing was, well, redundant. It was a menial task; as
impossible trying to force the fog that surrounded it to
part.
Regardless, he kept
walking, sticking to the routine. He had always kept to the
routine.
As far as he
knew, it was the only thing he could do to wake up.
And
then it ended, like a flash, like it always did. I sucked air into my
chest, my eyes flying open. For a second, I could make out the blurry
outline of the thing in the corner of the room. I put it down to post
sleep hallucinations. Hell, it was better than the spiders. Anything
was better than the spiders. I mean, they’re only real 20% of the
time, but you know. If we really do eat about 5 spiders a year, I
probably eat about 70. God damned things love to nest in my mouth
hole.
Face opening.
Food
chute.
Oh, uh, yeah, I’m
getting off track and that doesn’t really matter! What probably
matters is an explanation. That he, the guy shitting his pants over a
bunch of wood, was me. Or, I am him, if you like it like
that.
The name’s Guy. Hi.
On
this particular day, I didn’t want to get up. To be bluntly honest,
I really never did. But the light was shining through the
grubby curtains and the air was abuzz with the sound of a menagerie
of insects trying to get laid. It hit my face like a blank, ethereal
blade, and an annoying one at that. I sat in the sticky summer heat,
the morning already warming up the air in the room, the dry cold
giving way to humid insanity. I wished the God damn air conditioner
wasn’t broken.
I blinked the
sweat out of my eyes, my own body taking up the slack for Jerry, the
repairman, and his lackadaisical cooling units. As I did, the dust
particles floating in the sliver of light danced in and out of my
vision. There were probably thousands of skin cells and dust from
people who have stayed in this room. Each one with its own story, but
only visible in the right light at the right time.
Whatever.
The
pondering continued a while longer, before I sat up on my dime store
mattress. In one motion, I swept a dead spider off of my pillow, and
rubbed my eyes.
In the end, I
blinked again, my vision growing fuzzy from the pressure, and then
returning a second later. Same room I fell asleep in. Was it too much
to hope I’d wake up in another, less shitty room for a change? I
guess that was only going to happen once, though.
I held my eyes
closed, hoping my wish would come true. No luck. Same greasy shag
rug. Same old gunshot holes in the wall, (only ten of them were made
by me, by the way,) like any good motel room.
Scattered
haphazardly across the room were tables, covered in junk. Hopefully,
my car keys were still there.
I
shuffled out of bed, laying my feet on the cold rug. I could swear it
was moving as I put my feet onto it. I made my way to the wardrobe
that held all of my worldly possessions, making sure to step on the
carpet the least amount of times I could.. My feet somehow migrated
sloppily to the wooden behemoth, one right after the
other.
The handles of
the wardrobe were conveniently covered in some sort of dry sticky
substance, which is to be expected in a place like this. With a pull,
the sliding door moved, and I groped blindly for the light switch.
All I got was meat.
Before me
lay a corridor, the walls of which were lined with slick, pulsing
flesh. It was lit dimly by yellow, pussy nodules lining the walls at
random intervals, seemingly grown from the sides.
At
the end, a clown stood, doing what I could only assume was playing
the banjo. I closed it, opened it again. Same clown, same banjo, the
riff from Deliverance ringing hollow through the gaping meat
hole.
I closed the door again,
deciding it was too early for all this. Even then, though, this was
only the fifth time this week, so it was a good day, and a Tuesday no
less.
Swinging the door to the
bathroom, I headed to the sink. In the mirror, a kid came into view
on the other side. Behind the chipped, cracked surface covered in
limestone and a little SpongeBob sticker with a dick lovingly drawn
on, was the same face I’ve seen day in and day out for the past 17
years. You’d think it’d get boring seeing it, but it
doesn’t.
Haha, I’m
kidding. It gets pretty awful looking at myself.
I
looked expectantly, hoping maybe something had changed overnight in
my appearance. No such luck. I couldn’t help but thinking I looked
stretched, worn thin. To be honest, I looked too big for my own
skin.
What lay before me was
the same brown hair, scuffled and tossed about on the side I was
sleeping on, which was every side. I had the same jaw, thin and
soft, a thin layer of stubble coating it. Same nose; broken
twice but barely noticeable. The same ears jutted forth from my head,
still as obtuse as before.
But,
worst of all, I had the same Goddamn eyes.