In My Dreams

Felicity...I lie awake each night without your presence. Even under the layers and layers of blankets, you insisted on draping over our bed on humid summer nights, it feels cold without you next to me. On the few nights that I manage to close my eyes and slip away into another world, the same dream haunts me every night. 

Whenever I close my eyes, the lights of cars passing by flit over my shut lids, and I feel myself twisting through empty space into the same parking lot, filled with used and unwanted cars. It’s always raining here and the thrum of a thousand raindrops hitting the rusted doors and hoods of faded black and red cars fills the night. It was your favorite sort of weather, the one where the water weighs down on the puffed white clouds in the sky on a humid summer night and we could dance in the lukewarm drops without getting sick the next day. The white shirt you got me for our anniversary grows heavier on my shoulders each time I come here and each time I feel the corners of my mouth pull up as I imagine how you’ll nag me for staining yet another shirt. Yet, on this night I stand in the middle of the lot until even my socks are soaked through and the rain grows cold and the droplets begin to taste like iron. Finally, as the rain subsides, my body begins to move forward towards the piles of metal, their matte surfaces glimmering under the dim streetlamp. Each step in my water-logged shoes are not my own and with the increasing ground I cover, I feel myself sink into the deceptively solid pavement until my head plunges underground and I feel the water sloshing inside my ears. Every breath I take fills my lungs with oily water that reeks of iron. My feet hit the ground and the thick liquid slips away revealing a brightly lit courtroom. 

Even in my imagination, my mind is muddled underneath the blinding fluorescent lights that line the courtroom. From behind a desk, I see your face plastered onto a giant poster but you yourself are nowhere to be seen. A faceless judge bangs the gavel on the mahogany podium, sending its authoritative echo through the crowded audience, silencing their speculative whispers. I’m suddenly aware of the heavy chains that cuff me to the table and the orange jumpsuit that replaced that white shirt of mine. On my chest, there’s simply an eight-digit number where a name should be and a lawyer in a cheap suit standing stiffly beside me. This isn’t how I remembered that day Felicity. My mind always plays tricks on me when I get here. But with two blinks, the orange jumpsuit is gone and I’m standing on the other side of the judge’s desk, my hands-free from chains and a crisp new blazer hangs from my shoulders. The skin on my cheeks is caked with dry salt and I feel another trail being drawn down my face. 

This is how I remember it. This was how it was. A cold winter afternoon in a large courtroom and a bustling audience to witness justice for you. A few feet away from us, where I had been standing two blinks ago was that horrid man in a bright orange jumpsuit and a nameless tag on his chest. I felt bile rising up my throat seeing his gaunt, tired face surely filled with guilt for your blood that permanently stained his hands. The way the skin underneath his eyes sagged and were discolored grey and pink filled me with satisfaction knowing he was losing sleep over what he had done. I have no control over my body in this state and to my dissatisfaction, my eyes finally avert from that excuse of a man and focus on the judge. His gown sits stiffly down the entirety of the body, nothing like the flowing satin dresses that filled your closet. The gavel hits his desk again, once, twice, and the room spins into darkness again, spiraling me into yet another destination. One that is by far my least favorite.

A dim “No Vacancy” sign flickers before me, the only light that breaks through the darkness that draped the night. It’s raining again and I feel the warm droplets dripping down my face, my leather shoes soaked from wandering around as I searched for you through the evening. I find your white SUV parked amongst the other rusted cars in front of the Motel 6 I had found myself at. My feet bring me into the middle of the courtyard and a door hanging slightly ajar seems to pull me towards its opening, beckoning me to see what’s hidden behind its concrete interior.

Your voice echoes through the raindrops and I run towards you, slamming the metal door into the flimsy white walls. Felicity, I knew you were in trouble. The last of you I saw was pinned under that man, a saccharine smile surely plastered on your face. If you were here, I’m positive you would’ve assured me that your smile was forged as were your eyes that bent into crescents. The red flush that filled your face was nothing but blood under your skin and your laugh that resonated in my ears was simply chords in your throat strummed half-heartedly. The way your eyes widened at the sight of me was out of relief and the way red filled my eyes was out of love for you. 

Dear Felicity, the only image of you that remains in my head and haunts me through the night was as gruesome as it was cruel to me. Your pale, thin arm riddled with dull bruises, hung over the motel bed, staining the thin, cotton sheets with the thick, crimson ichor that once flowed to your cheeks and your eyes stared out emptily at me. That man, that disgusting man, desecrated your limp, soulless body, clutching onto you tightly as if hoping to squeeze you hard enough that your soul might come back just for him to do it all over again. A laugh escaped my mouth as I saw how pitiful he was, how merciless it was for him to regret what he had done, seconds after he had plunged that metal pole through you. Then the scent of your blood, which had once been so sweet to me, flooded my nose and I could finally smell the death that quickly spilled through the room. 

The rain continued to pour down as I ran out of that damned room and ran across the street to the abandoned parking lot where my dreams always started. There I stood in the pouring warm rain, where I called the police and where I watched them cart you out under a blanket of white, yet another faceless body in my dreams. My face was illuminated by the red and blue flashing of the police cars that drove away with that man in chains and the rain pouring down on me. Each night I wake up, the shadows on my hands remind me of that repulsive feeling of the sticky red liquid that coated my hands that night. Oh, Felicity, it is only in my dreams that I get to see you and only in my dreams that I wish you had never left me. Only in my dreams in the darkest of nights do I feel your warmth.