Recurring Nightmare

I am awakened to the angry echoing of heavy chains clanging together somewhere near by. I open my eyes, but it's as if they are still closed. All I can see is absolute darkness and nothingness. I strain my eyes anyway attempting to peer through the pitch in the direction from which I think the sound may be coming. I feel a little disoriented and there is a persistent throbbing like someone swinging a spiked mace at the center of my skull from the inside. Every time those damn chains, wherever they are, come together it must be with a great deal of force because that awful sound they’re making feels like it’s aiding the spiked mace in its attack against my head.

Thinking my eyes should be adjusting I continue looking to where those chains may be, but regardless of how close they sound I still see only black. Attempting to lean towards the sound in the hope of possibly improving my vision my movement is instantly halted by a sudden sharp, cold pain shooting up from my wrists and into my forearms. I begin testing my mobility by trying to move various parts of my body one at a time, but soon realize it's ineffective. I'm held in place at the wrists, throat, waist, thighs, and ankles. More of that same pain, like frozen electricity, surges through my body from each point of contact, but at least I'm pretty sure I found the chains.

As more of my senses come to me, I hear what sounds like a shuffling movement somewhere nearby perhaps coming from a person. I try to call out, but my voice isn't working. It seems I don't have the air to muster a voice. If I wasn't concerned before I certainly am now. Reminding myself not to panic, I try to recall where I was and what I was doing before waking up here.

Before I can remember where I was last a cold, solid pressure starts pushing against my ribcage from either side of my body. I hear something grinding and squealing right next to me. It sounds like metal on metal and the pressure is really squeezing me now causing me to close my eyes. It's as though the pain somehow instantly returned the rest of my senses to me. I finally realize I'm chained to a metal table and my ribs are being crushed by a vice. As if to confirm this sudden epiphany the cracking sound my bones make as they break cries out into heavy dark and cuts it like thunder shaking the night sky for acknowledgement, but this unyielding onyx oblivion doesn't acknowledge.

Horrid, endless darkness still permeates my surroundings, whatever they may be. The squealing continues and at this point I'm actually thankful I can't see anything because I can feel everything so acutely now. I can picture rather vividly exactly what's happening to my ribs as the cracking continues and I feel them caving in. Then there's a much louder pop and the release of a severe force which finally coerces a silent scream of suffocating agony, but as my eyes shoot open again I'm back in my own bed.

Understanding slowly creeps in and the pain ebbs to a familiar discomfort. I look down towards myself and see that I am in the fetal position with my arms wrapped around my chest. I uncurl and wince a bit as my slight movement sends a lingering ache throughout the rest of my body and floods my mind with images from my nightmare, not allowing me to forget it anytime soon. I really need a hot bath.

As I slip into my bath my mind groggily bounces from one incoherent thought to the next until I find myself thinking back to that damn nightmare and then to my ribs. It's been twelve years since my ribs were broken, but even while soaking in this hot water a dull ache remains. I need to wake up and chase these useless thoughts from my head. I can’t allow myself to dwell on the past.  Whenever it's cold and/or rainy old injuries start aching as though they had only occurred. If this happens when I'm asleep it's not uncommon for it to trigger nightmares.  

The rain can be so soothing. It tends to lull me into a deep sleep in which I lose all sense of self. However, the coolness and dampness of rainy night air seeps into old wounds. Bones previously broken throb with renewed ache. Even those injuries which healed years ago are like dormant volcanoes becoming suddenly and violently roused from their slumber by chill and moisture. Pain invades even the deepest sleep and influences perception. The unconscious brain seeks to visualize what’s happening to the body.

The influence of agony on the mind interprets these imagined explanations as reality. Thus, twisting the memories of past traumas into inescapable nightmares. If the pain is intense enough and the nightmares vivid enough, they become etched into the brain like any other memory. Long after subconsciousness yields to awareness and the mind is able to comprehend the event as a mere fabrication, the body continues to feel the experience.

Soaking the physical ache until it dissolves to a mild discomfort doesn’t chase away the images left by the dream. The remnant ache manufactured visions worse than the actual events which caused the injuries responsible for the initial pain. A misty night left a more gruesome memory than the tragic recollection of the past. Perhaps a more fanciful, albeit graphic, account of how my ribs came to be broken is preferable to the disheartening truth. Sometimes it’s easier to romanticize an ordeal as a heroic tail of triumph over a vicious monster than a pathetic survival of victimization inflicted by another human being. When asked how I broke my ribs, it would be easier to say I escaped a deranged killer than it is to say my own mother kicked them in when I was a child.

I refuse to be a victim. So long as the nightmares haunt me, I can never be free of her. I will not allow myself to be shackled by the past. Some part of me is glad to have such a vivid nightmare provide me with an alternative memory as to how my ribs were broken. Every sensation felt real enough to be a true memory. Perhaps one day the rain will no longer cause me pain and the nightmares will be replaced by dreams of a new life. Until then, I welcome any nightmare that differs from my true past.