waking nightmare

perhaps it was precipitated by reading my old journal before bed. entries about how much i resented the people i once went to college with for their failures to acknowledge my potential and their own. is that why i dreamt of them as heartless, cruel, violent predators? ready to cut my eyes out to spite my face, to cut my arms off to spite my body.

"you need knew eyes" she said in a low, raspy tone, sharp with malice and hatred.

"uh, maybe later, i'm going to bed now."

in the dream i closed my eyes, only for the thought to occur to me i hope she doesn't do anything to me in my sleep. and armless from an earlier attack of the familiar, how would i defend myself from another? i opened them again, and she lingered over me, a vile smile on her sharp face, her yellow eyes thirsty for my pain. that was when i awoke, shaken. the near-attack was as real as any near-attack could have been. the fear of being brutally assaulted in my sleep. the heartlessness and cruelty suddenly painted on a familiar face, for no reason, with no warning, like a person possessed by a demon, disfigured, somehow changed and yet for all appearances still the same.

i rested in bed for a few brief minutes, feeling the darkness closing in on me. i was chilly, so i drew a blanket across my shoulders. it was too heavy. the darkness was too heavy, weighing on me, the nightmare too immanent. i was not yet ready to resubmerge in the pool of subconsciousness. i was rattled, so i rose, leaving my new room and my new bed and the cache of new dreams that have been flooding in from behind the veil these past few days.

i sit down before this computer. there is a message from one of those disappointing friends whom i had recently ceased communicating with, one with whom i had a long, disappointing affair. the time stamp reveals that the message was sent at the very time i was reading about our long, disappointing affair. strange how these synchronicities arise.

"soph, quick question."
but he never asked.

i will return to bed soon, and will perhaps take comfort in a fiction before i let the fog of sleep settle across my eyelids. i have things to do this coming day. a job interview, a friend's farewell, cementing my own travel plans. this was an unfortunate night for these demons to haunt me. is there anything worse than to wish for the immersion of sleep only to fear one's own powerless against the illusions that await one there? the terror of helplessness? all waiting in the comfort of a cool pillow, a soft mattress.