Nightscape

I’m standing alone, off the center of an unknown room. The sewers threw up its insides and let the dirty water dry in this dank and dark place. There are no windows and the walls are tinted an eerie green, from the bacteria, mold, and decomposition of disintegrating material. I hear laughter from afar and look over my shoulder.

In front of a distant wall, there is a tall figure, hunched. His face is long and white. Powder white, like a performer’s. He has long nails like that of a rat dying of rabies, and sharp, angulated teeth like a predator of the deep. Yellow strabismus, and keratitis ridden orbs, hunger lingering between the blood-orange veins. Red hair as bright as a mocking sun. Big forehead, high-arched eyebrows creating a ridiculous McDonald’s sign. He’s wearing a big smile, along with a dirty white clown costume. His smile lengthens and reaches both his earlobes. The forehead wrinkles on his pasty white face crease and deepen. 

A silent exhale. He’s in front of me, his widening jaw over me. I stand there, speechless and awe-struck. Blood drips from his grey tinted, porous teeth. His mouth opens up with no limits, like a broken gate. His upper lip pushes against his nose, giving him a pig’s feature. His cheeks press against his eyelids, making his eyes bulge out from his head; like white cylinders with two yellow orbs stuck on the front extending outside, like caterpillars stretching. This all happens in a second. 

He snaps his jaw—I wake up, with a sweaty back, my heart beating fast against my chest. His feeding face imprinted behind my eyelids like an afterimage, each time I blink. It’s dead silent in my room. I look to my right, where my clock stares back at me and radiates a humiliating 3:43 AM across my visage. I exhale and pull my sheets up to my flushed face, I think I could be safe under here.

Nathanial Hawthorn is quoted for saying, “We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.” If reality really does occur in our dreams, then I certainly wasn’t walking. I was sprinting. Sprinting through the nights of my 10th and 11th grade years, waking up with red eyes, purple eyebags, and crushed dreams.

“I had the craziest dream last night,” I said to my dad over breakfast, swiping breadcrumbs from my mouth.

This is how I would usually start breakfast talk. My dad (heating water on the kettle to make his morning mate) would almost always respond with, “wow, I rarely remember my dreams.” I would nod, my eyes gazing off, and eat my toast and marmalade, but his words still lingered in my apricot preserve. These weren’t dreams–they were scripts from thrillers not yet created, aspirations of lunatics locked up in Alcatraz Island, fantasies from Alfred Hitchcock’s psychotic killers. I’m sure a dream analyst would have an ecstatic playdate with me.

“You’d be a great thriller writer,” my dad, sipping his mate, said with a smile.

“Yeah,” I responded with a dry huff. I could have kept asking, but I didn’t want to even face the realization that I possibly had a problem.

Nighttime got so scary, I’d pray to my mind at night to be gentle with me. I’d be embarrassed to acknowledge that I would sometimes go to my parent’s room, after a scare, safe under my mom’s sweet embrace. Here and again I would fight back in my dreams. But it was never in a kick-ass, wow-I-stood-up-against-a-bad-guy, cool way. I did it out of exhaustion, of living through different thrillers I didn’t consent to play in each night. 

I couldn’t focus in class. The analysis of what I, alone, had witnessed in the night zipped inside my head like ping pongs, kicking out the Biology lesson entering through my ear canal. I felt like I was sleep-walking during the day.

I wanted to hold myself accountable. I wasn’t going to let my nighttime agent, Seeker of Demented Memorabilia, take over my daytime one, Justine. But the more coursework I had, the more creative and frequent Seeker of Demented Memorabilia became and appeared.

I mentioned my dreams to my friend once, at a sleepover. We had just watched a comedy and I felt free from any potential horror-time labor at night. 

“Really? Wow, that’s crazy. I don’t remember my dreams at all.”

This time, unlike at breakfast, I stuck with the issue. 

“Have you never had a nightmare?” I said with minor disbelief and jealousy laced in my words.

“Sure I have, I just don’t remember them.”

“But, like none that have scared you badly?”

“Um, no I don’t think so. Ooh! Actually, I remember in this dream I was picking which of the two dresses in front of me I was going to wear. And then all of a sudden the lights in the closet turn off. I was spooked!”

And that was that.

That night, I had a strange dream of opening a hotel room to two human sized cockroaches standing in the center. Staring at me.

Waking up from that sleepover I felt ashamed. Why did my dreams have to be so weird? Did this make me weird? If so, why was I this weird? I was mad at Seeker of Demented Memorabilia for showing up every night like a dutiful janitor.

Being the only victim, detective, and killer of the crime, I started to build distrust and concern towards the root of the problem: myself. For who else but myself was in charge of these night terrors? I built the maze, now I had to go through it. I knew I was the cause of my unrest, the criminal in my case.

“Your honor,” one juror stood. “Our verdict is final. We the jury, find the defendant guilty,” a wave of celebration and screams reverberated around the room, “on the charge of harassment, and malicious disturbance to the development of a young girl’s brain, during a most vulnerable hour of the night.”

The audience roared in excitement. They didn’t even have to get tickets for this show. The judge punched the gavel against the dark sound block, silencing the masses with a crack.

“Order!” the gavel whizzed up and down in a blur. “Order in the court!” with a final whip of the mallette the crowd stilled. 

The judge stared at me with the word Justice written in the back of her eyes. 

“I hereby sentence you, Justine, to an angsty teenagehood.”

Even if my guilty verdict had been final, I decided I wasn’t going to live my teenage years in agony. I couldn’t–no–I wouldn’t let this continue. Was I to face this problem until my adult-hood? What about my senile-hood? No, I wouldn’t stand for it. I decided to break the law.

So I did the equivalent of what a distraught and frantic 1920s detective with only his .38 caliber and his true love, whiskey, would do: I went on Youtube. I researched countless How-To videos on “Getting the best sleep of your life!” and “It’s this simple, Wake up rested and energized” and “Why you always feel tired. 5 sleep mistakes you’re making.” I identified how to pick up on my body’s stress cues (instead of feeling guilty for taking a break, I balanced my time with more consideration), be more present in the moment (I wouldn’t go on my phone or watch TV when I was relaxing, I was truly enjoying the now), and not put too much pressure on myself (it was just a test). Most importantly, I learned that my nightmares didn’t come from an evil demon festering inside of me, but were a projection of the stress I felt throughout the day.

My assignments at school were scary enough, but I didn’t, for the longest time, want to admit that to myself. I was scared of failing my classes. Scared to fail myself. It sounded stupid to me, to accept that a piece of paper caused me excess stress. So I gave myself no time to acknowledge or process my emotions. I neglected my anxious feelings and then felt even more dejected when feelings of peace, as if in strike, neglected me. The only time I did process my feelings would be at night. My mind, acknowledging that my daily stress wasn’t a valid scare, created scenarios with killer-clowns and maniacs chasing me down, for me to feel okay to be scared. My stress throughout the day was personified into scary monsters, shooters, lost family members, dead dogs. 

Through an unconventional way I found a new side of me. The day-time side of me, who needed breaks, laughter, and relaxation. I wasn’t one personality that went to school and solely worked. I couldn’t be run like a Seven Eleven, or to be a little more classy, like a computer.

At a time when everything felt unreal, I had unconsciously chosen to escape into my nightmares. Maybe Hawthorn was wrong. Maybe we don’t walk or even sprint through our dreams. Maybe our dreams aren’t a poetic extension of ourselves. Maybe dreams are just random, collecting, sorting, and showcasing different details that will trigger certain emotions in you. There’s nothing special to a dream, the only special thing is you experiencing it. 

Now, I say goodnight to my parents, truly meaning it this time. I go to sleep with a cool head, turn on waves-crashing-along-the-shore sounds, slip my pink eye mask down my face, and lay my head on my soft silk pillows. I exhale, and I inhale. I’m no longer frightened to go to sleep. I welcome sweet dreams.