scruta

I’m in a terrible dream. Undifferentiated, pale faces are pursuing me. These men and women turn into devils with dark raspy voices and eyes of burning fire. Unidentified hounds of my past call out: Failure! Nothing! Pathetic nothing!

They are coming. They are coming for me.

I wake up in my darkened room, lit only by the low lights of the electronics charging around me. The lilt of the rain outside enters into the silence.  My heart is pounding. I’m gasping for breath. For a moment, I’m not sure whether the devils are real or not. I look around my room in panic.

Then I tell myself that the real devils don’t appear in dreams. They aren’t mystical beings. They aren’t even figments of the imagination. They’re daywalkers, smiling widely, shaking hands, kissing babies, supposedly saving us all. But deep down they know, and we do too, that they’re only out to save themselves. And we let them betray us.

They aren’t here, I think. They aren’t here.

I fall back asleep.