The nightmares always begin the same, but rarely end the same way twice.
It always starts with my mother and I, sitting on her bed in some hotel room in Salzburg. I can’t be older than four or five--I can still sit on her lap and play with the locket my father gave her before he left--but I see the two of us as though I were another person, standing in the doorway as a casual observer, nothing more.
She’s laughing at my happy chatterings that drifted across the linguistic boundaries of French and English and that secret language of babies and small children, her fingers pulling through my soft black curls to tame them into their nightly braids. She says something in quiet, lyrical French, her raspberry-colored lips turned up at the corners and her simple speech sounding like a lullaby. I giggle at whatever she said and roll off of her lap onto the soft comforter, squealing at her fingers tickling my sides.
And then, the lights cut out for a moment, and when they flicker back to life, my mother and I--now no longer a baby, but an older child, perhaps nine or ten--are in a different hotel room, a different city, a different country. I am no longer small enough to sit on her lap and play with her necklace as she combs my hair, and so sit cross-legged on the bed in my Chinese silk pajamas and let her work behind me. I say something in melancholy French about the weather, staring moodily out the window. My mother smiles and kisses my temple as she finishes tying the ribbon in my hair.
And the lights cut out again, and a woman screams, and the dreams change.
Sometimes, I am a young woman of maybe fourteen, holding my mother’s hand as she lays bleeding on the hotel room floor, dressed in red high heels and pearls and a black dress--her funeral costume. A man stands above us both, looking at a pistol with smoke curling lazily to the ceiling like he believes that he is the one dreaming, the one having a nightmare. I scream and cry and try everything I can to save her as he turns and walks out of the room like a drunkard, and she melts like the steam from the spout of her favorite tea kettle.
Sometimes, I am in my uncle’s house as a woman of perhaps thirty or so, with my young cousins that must learn to go through life without a mother. Fire licks at the nursery walls, and I have the young girl in my arms and I reach into the cradle for the baby boy, so confident that in an adrenaline-fueled flight, I can save them both. But as my fingers brush the edges of his blanket, the cradle collapses like kindling in a fireplace, and he falls, still sleeping, through floor after floor after floor, into the fiery depths of Hell itself, and in my attempt to grab him before he should fall too far, the girl falls out of my arms too, and I am left screaming by the edge of a gaping pit, the flames licking and laughing in my tortured ears.
Sometimes, I am an old woman at the end of my life, standing in a maze in the dead of winter. I find myself lost, and I wander and wander and wander until the wind begins to howl, and a woman in a mourning veil appears before me, wielding a blood-soaked dagger. As much as I wish to run, something deep inside me stays my feet and relieves my knees of the compulsion to support my weight, my tired old eyes anchored in fearful apathy to Death and her bloody weapon.
Sometimes, on nights that are still and pleasant like this one, I am myself as I am right at this moment, watching you walk away from me with a gun over your shoulder and a military uniform clothing that body that I know so well. I scream your name and beg you not to leave me, not again, but still you march, moving to join a column of the damned marching with a feverish compulsion to the depths of Hell Itself, and I can’t stop you and I can’t follow and I can’t bring you back. And then, you stop in the middle of your path, and the tiniest spot of red appears on your back, blossoming outwards like a macabre rose until your whole body is soaked in blood, and you fall to the ground, dying, and I can’t move to help you, or do anything besides scream.
And sometimes, it is different, and sometimes, I wake up before these dreams have run as far as they have, and sometimes, I continue to toss and turn in the captivity of my dreams and they play farther and farther like a play that I detest and at the same time cannot stop watching, and some nights, for fear of dreams, I don’t sleep at all.
But always I wake up screaming. And always, I wake up to you holding me like the fragile child I really am on the inside.
“Shhh, shhh, my love, it’s alright,” you whisper in my ear, dragging me from the horrific grip of my mind with every stroke of your fingers through my soft dark curls. “I’m here, it’s alright...”
My fingers curl desperately around your nightshirt, willing myself to remember that you haven’t died, and I haven’t died, and we’re together, and all is well again. “I dreamt about you again,” I whisper into your shoulder, still clinging to you like you were the last shred of hope left anywhere. Like I did when you finally came back from the war. “Please don’t leave me again.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise.”
“I don’t make promises, you know that.”
In a fit of half-awake fear, I squeeze tighter. “You’re all I have--don’t make me think I’m going to lose you.”
“You won’t.” You lay back down against the pillows with me still curled up like a child against your chest. “I’m right here, and I’m not leaving.”
I tuck my head under your chin like always and pray that time stops for an eternity or two. “Don’t leave me here again,” I mumble sleepily again, my eyes fighting not to close against the comforting repetitive strokes of your fingers against my scalp. “Just stay with me right here in this bed in this hotel room and don’t ever make me leave this ever again.”
A tired, breathy chuckle escapes your nose and ruffles my hair a bit. “I love you so much,” you whisper, sounding just as tired as I am.
Soon, the moon is playing on your skin and mine, and between the blankets and your strong arms around me, I’m about ready to drift off again, although I don’t have quite such a bad feeling as when I went to sleep the first time.
My mother used to say that nightmares are just the shadows around us that we fear the most, and maybe that’s true, and maybe it’s not. I’ve never been much of one to muse on the questions of the inner subconscious. But if it is the truth, then my biggest fear, my greatest nightmare, is losing you all over again, and not having you come back to me.
Which, incidentally, is something I could’ve told us both all along.
It always starts with my mother and I, sitting on her bed in some hotel room in Salzburg. I can’t be older than four or five--I can still sit on her lap and play with the locket my father gave her before he left--but I see the two of us as though I were another person, standing in the doorway as a casual observer, nothing more.
She’s laughing at my happy chatterings that drifted across the linguistic boundaries of French and English and that secret language of babies and small children, her fingers pulling through my soft black curls to tame them into their nightly braids. She says something in quiet, lyrical French, her raspberry-colored lips turned up at the corners and her simple speech sounding like a lullaby. I giggle at whatever she said and roll off of her lap onto the soft comforter, squealing at her fingers tickling my sides.
And then, the lights cut out for a moment, and when they flicker back to life, my mother and I--now no longer a baby, but an older child, perhaps nine or ten--are in a different hotel room, a different city, a different country. I am no longer small enough to sit on her lap and play with her necklace as she combs my hair, and so sit cross-legged on the bed in my Chinese silk pajamas and let her work behind me. I say something in melancholy French about the weather, staring moodily out the window. My mother smiles and kisses my temple as she finishes tying the ribbon in my hair.
And the lights cut out again, and a woman screams, and the dreams change.
Sometimes, I am a young woman of maybe fourteen, holding my mother’s hand as she lays bleeding on the hotel room floor, dressed in red high heels and pearls and a black dress--her funeral costume. A man stands above us both, looking at a pistol with smoke curling lazily to the ceiling like he believes that he is the one dreaming, the one having a nightmare. I scream and cry and try everything I can to save her as he turns and walks out of the room like a drunkard, and she melts like the steam from the spout of her favorite tea kettle.
Sometimes, I am in my uncle’s house as a woman of perhaps thirty or so, with my young cousins that must learn to go through life without a mother. Fire licks at the nursery walls, and I have the young girl in my arms and I reach into the cradle for the baby boy, so confident that in an adrenaline-fueled flight, I can save them both. But as my fingers brush the edges of his blanket, the cradle collapses like kindling in a fireplace, and he falls, still sleeping, through floor after floor after floor, into the fiery depths of Hell itself, and in my attempt to grab him before he should fall too far, the girl falls out of my arms too, and I am left screaming by the edge of a gaping pit, the flames licking and laughing in my tortured ears.
Sometimes, I am an old woman at the end of my life, standing in a maze in the dead of winter. I find myself lost, and I wander and wander and wander until the wind begins to howl, and a woman in a mourning veil appears before me, wielding a blood-soaked dagger. As much as I wish to run, something deep inside me stays my feet and relieves my knees of the compulsion to support my weight, my tired old eyes anchored in fearful apathy to Death and her bloody weapon.
Sometimes, on nights that are still and pleasant like this one, I am myself as I am right at this moment, watching you walk away from me with a gun over your shoulder and a military uniform clothing that body that I know so well. I scream your name and beg you not to leave me, not again, but still you march, moving to join a column of the damned marching with a feverish compulsion to the depths of Hell Itself, and I can’t stop you and I can’t follow and I can’t bring you back. And then, you stop in the middle of your path, and the tiniest spot of red appears on your back, blossoming outwards like a macabre rose until your whole body is soaked in blood, and you fall to the ground, dying, and I can’t move to help you, or do anything besides scream.
And sometimes, it is different, and sometimes, I wake up before these dreams have run as far as they have, and sometimes, I continue to toss and turn in the captivity of my dreams and they play farther and farther like a play that I detest and at the same time cannot stop watching, and some nights, for fear of dreams, I don’t sleep at all.
But always I wake up screaming. And always, I wake up to you holding me like the fragile child I really am on the inside.
“Shhh, shhh, my love, it’s alright,” you whisper in my ear, dragging me from the horrific grip of my mind with every stroke of your fingers through my soft dark curls. “I’m here, it’s alright...”
My fingers curl desperately around your nightshirt, willing myself to remember that you haven’t died, and I haven’t died, and we’re together, and all is well again. “I dreamt about you again,” I whisper into your shoulder, still clinging to you like you were the last shred of hope left anywhere. Like I did when you finally came back from the war. “Please don’t leave me again.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise.”
“I don’t make promises, you know that.”
In a fit of half-awake fear, I squeeze tighter. “You’re all I have--don’t make me think I’m going to lose you.”
“You won’t.” You lay back down against the pillows with me still curled up like a child against your chest. “I’m right here, and I’m not leaving.”
I tuck my head under your chin like always and pray that time stops for an eternity or two. “Don’t leave me here again,” I mumble sleepily again, my eyes fighting not to close against the comforting repetitive strokes of your fingers against my scalp. “Just stay with me right here in this bed in this hotel room and don’t ever make me leave this ever again.”
A tired, breathy chuckle escapes your nose and ruffles my hair a bit. “I love you so much,” you whisper, sounding just as tired as I am.
Soon, the moon is playing on your skin and mine, and between the blankets and your strong arms around me, I’m about ready to drift off again, although I don’t have quite such a bad feeling as when I went to sleep the first time.
My mother used to say that nightmares are just the shadows around us that we fear the most, and maybe that’s true, and maybe it’s not. I’ve never been much of one to muse on the questions of the inner subconscious. But if it is the truth, then my biggest fear, my greatest nightmare, is losing you all over again, and not having you come back to me.
Which, incidentally, is something I could’ve told us both all along.
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