Nightmare World
They were big shadows. Red and green. With glowing white globs for eyes. They called his name using his father’s voice: “Michael! Come over here!” Mike would not fall for the shadows’ pathetic ploy. He studied at Harvard and was therefore too smart for any shadow games.
The door at the end of the Harvard history hallway was still in his sights. Yet the further he ran, the further the door stretched. The shadows were catching up, seeming faster and faster. The situation was desperate, and Mike kept wishing that he could fly away from these creatures.
Then, Mike tripped over something and fell to the ground. He tried to get up, but his body was so exhausted that he couldn’t move. Mike’s body soon got dragged by the shadow creatures. When he tried to focus his swirling eyesight, Mike got a good look at the shadows who grabbed him. They were all copies of his father with glowing eyes and red and green hues. Mike felt a lump in his throat.
“Hello, Michael,” the father copies said in unison, “you thought you could spill our little secret to your mom without paying for it? Guess again.”
Mike whimpered, “I’m sorry, dad. Honest!”
“You’re gonna be sorry,” the father clones hissed. They grabbed Mike and marched him to what seemed to be a giant toilet.
“Where are you taking me?” Mike said.
“Where all the garbage and little shits like you go, kid...” the father creatures said with grins, “...Down the toilet!”
Mike’s helpless body splashed down into the bottom of the giant toilet, and he tried to swim up to safety. There was a flushing noise and he soon got sucked into the other side beyond the giant toilet. Into the abyss. He closed his eyes, hoping for a release from his dream.
***
When Mike opened his eyes again, his body was covered by the blankets of a small-sized bed. The area was not a dark hallway, but a small bedroom. A dark bedroom that was packed with old Harvard regalia and at least four shelves full of novels and textbooks relating to history. A bedroom that seemed neatly cleaned up without any pile of clothing, but it looked like the bedroom that was part of his childhood home in a Cambridge, MA suburb that was a few blocks from Harvard. He saw a clock next to him that flashed 7:45 PM. With a hazy head, Mike tried to remember what this place was, and how he got there from that hallway of shadow creatures. Under closer inspection, all he could gather was that he had an empty stomach and a huge knot in his back.
Mike finally used his dry mouth to speak. He bellowed in a low rasp to himself, “Where am I? What is this...place? It’s familiar, but I don’t want to trust it.”
He turned his head to a human-like form standing next to him. Mike’s only instinct was to cover his head with his pillow. While a female voice said his name, he responded with a hoarse “Go away!”
“Michael, it’s okay. It’s just me.”
Mike poked his head out and recognized the woman’s pale face with curly blonde hair and few wrinkles. She or it also had some tears on her face, like she was concerned about something. It was his mother, or at least it looked like his mother.
“Thank God,” his mother said with a big sigh, “I thought you were almost dead! I’ve never seen you sleep this long. I mean, three days were enough to worry me sick. Here, take this.” She handed Mike an Advil and a glass of water. Mike looked at the Advil and the glass of water, not knowing if this was a trick. But there was some aura of sincerity in the mother’s eyes, which Mike couldn’t spurn. He gulped down the water and Advil, and he felt his throat got better. The mother asked, “Do you feel okay now, hon?”
Mike wasn’t okay. With a good look at what looked like his bedroom and at what appeared to be his mother, he knew where he was. He jerked out of his covers in terror.
“No. Not here. Anywhere but here.”
“Anywhere but where?” asked his mother.
“The Nightmare World, damn you!” Mike snapped “The shadows flushed me back to this godforsaken Nightmare World!”
His mother trembled. “Mike, please don’t say things like that,” she muttered.
“You don’t believe me, Mom?” asked Mike, now unsure about trusting his mother. “I mean, if that is who you want me to believe you are.”
“Not really,” said the mother, “I haven’t believed your theory that is the Nightmare World a week ago when you stopped going to school and did this...this hibernation routine.”
“I quit school?”
“You didn’t quit school, you...You really don’t remember?” his mother asked him, “You wanted to quit school a week ago because you kept having huge anxiety attacks due to your being overwhelmed by your school work. It’s why you tried to avoid Giselle. By the way, she showed up this afternoon with some Oreos, and wanted to tell you that...” She then paused as if she caught herself saying something that Mike didn’t want to hear. “Forget it!” said the mother, “All that matters now is that you’re awake, so you at least ought to know I whipped up some chicken potpie for dinner. I saved half of it for you. Why don’t you get dressed, go to the kitchen, and eat? You’ll feel better if you eat something. Maybe you can call up on Dr. Goelz and see if you can’t set up an appointment...”
Mike jumped at these words. His mother, or maybe her nightmare counterpart, was subtlety trying to trick him into staying in the Nightmare World again. He had already spent 20 years in that world, and his time there was too miserable for him to ever go back. Yes, it was all a trick.
“No!” Mike roared, “I know your little game! You want me back in the Nightmare World to suffer! Well, tough!” He bit his mother’s arm and then rested his head again. “I’m going back to sleep, and I’m going to continue finding a better realm than this one.”
He didn’t see his mother respond, since his eyes were shut again, but he heard her shut the door crying something about his father. Good, he thought, she’s leaving. Now I can try to leave this world again.
His run-in with the shadow creatures who became his dad was the latest in a never-ending crusade to find a better life to live than the one he lived in the Nightmare World. A happy realm. A fun realm. A realm where he can just fly into the sky without any troubles at all. No angry dad with pills, he thought, No need to overachieve. No Giselle.
Mike’s eyelids shattered open at that moment. He had just breezed over those things without knowing what they meant, but he felt interested in the last one. “Giselle” sounded at first like something lovely, something cheerful. But the name “Giselle” soon developed a subtext that irritated him, like something that would never be in his grasp again. At the same time, he was reminded of an experience in the Nightmare World. He remembered a blonde-haired woman who didn’t go to Harvard, but worked as an intern for a hospital. She joked about how her parents named her Giselle after the classic ballet, joking that they hated her because they accurately predicted that she would really, really hate ballet. She preferred football, while Mike had no idea how the game worked. Mike thought of a scene where this Giselle was eating a cheeseburger and fries in her scrubs while he was studying for, what was it? His Ottoman Empire midterm. Giselle kept telling him to snap out of his studying. When she was ignored, Giselle...Mike tried to think. Walked out on him? Chewed him out? No...she...stuck french fries in her nose while singing “Time to Say Goodbye” in a nasally voice, making Mike laugh so hard that he accidentally spilt his chocolate milkshake on his textbook. Back then, he suddenly felt relaxed. The both of them were laughing, and their laughing rang like a dirge in Mike’s head.
A strange female voice entered Mike’s head at that moment, saying: “Mike, snap out of it! Thinking about staying in the Nightmare World will keep you from staying in paradise!” Mike shuddered and reminded himself to stay relaxed. The voice was right, he had to sleep. That was the only way to get out of this place and the painful thoughts that brewed the longer he was there. So he closed his eyes.
TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW...
No comments:
Post a Comment