Lessons From My Shadow Dreams

It was storming, the sky a slab of slate with swollen thunderclouds crowding its expanse, each nudging for room. A wicked, unrelenting wind whipped chestnut hair into my eyes and mouth. Pulling it out of my face, I looked at the desolation surrounding me. Empty air met me in every direction.

I don't know where I am, I realize as the panic starts to set in and my breathing turns shallow and rapid. On my hands and knees, kneeling on what appears to be sand made from stardust, I take a calming breath and rise until I'm standing. What is this place? Where am I?

The last thing I remember is going to bed, my lids shutting to the lavender of my walls as I slowly drifted off to sleep.

Not knowing what else to do, I started walking, and that's when the voices began and the shadows formed.

At first, it was small; it was subtle. A whisper here, a mutter there, voices that got louder as I trudged on. I struggled against the wind, hugging my arms to myself, each hand gripping an elbow until my knuckles turned white as chalk. As I walked, the black, starlit sand at my feet began to rise with the wind, forming shadowy figures that strode alongside me, the overlapping voices tumbling from their open mouths. I watched in morbid fascination, my feet slowing, as their dark forms became recognizable, their faces slowly morphing into a colorless version of the faces I know.

On my right was my mother, a horrendous, nightmare version of my mother, her blue eyes dark as coal and her face twisted with malice.

"What are you doing? Really, Midge, are you fucking stupid? What’s wrong with you?" came from the cavern that was her mouth. My eyes went wide, fear and pain forming as tears that threatened to spill.

"You're not good enough. Why would I want to touch you? You're not what I want", came from my left, and my head whipped to see an equally nightmarish version of my ex. At this point, my feet had slowed until I was almost at a complete stop. More and more figures from both my past and present began to form and dance around me, each hurling their own unique version of verbal awfulness. With each invisible blow, I shrunk until I was crouched on the shifting sand, hands splayed over my face to cover sight and sound. I squeezed my eyes, silently begging for it to end, for the voices and noise and all the venom of the world to stop.

"Midge, breakfast!"

I gasped, jolting awake to my mom's voice calling from the kitchen. As reality settled in, a sick dread pooled in my gut at the vague nightmare I'd left behind.

"It was a bad dream Midge, just a bad dream," I mumbled to myself as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

I tramped downstairs, the thick soles of my boots making loud thuds on each carpet-covered step. I slid into a distressed wooden chair at our equally distressed dining table that doubled as our breakfast nook.

As I shoved eggs in my mouth, scrambled just how my mom knows I like it, I thought about our History exam today with rising anxiety. I was not the best at memorizing details, like dates or times, and last night Amy had another drama round with her douche of a boyfriend. My mom sat across from me, early morning sunlight streaming in from the window sink, sipping coffee from the chipped “Mom of the Year” mug I got her for Christmas last year, before Dad left. Before it all fell apart…

We sat together in silence. She analyzed me over her mug as I finished off my butter-soaked toast.

“You okay, honey? You seem stressed,” she asked with a slight tilt of her head.

I nibbled my toast while staring at my plate, not wanting to admit how egregiously unprepared I was for the day's exam… or the nightmare I’d endured that clung to me like static. It felt like I was seeing reality underwater; my senses warbled and muffled, making everything as impactful as an echo. My mom cleared her throat, snapping me out of my reverie.

“Midge?” she asked, her gaze holding concern as lines formed between her dark brows.

“I’m okay, just not as ready for my exam today as I’d like to be,” I answered simply. The truth was, I wasn’t ready at all, for anything. My mom pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, a clear sign she knew I was lying. To be fair, technically, I really was worried about the exam today, but I also was still disturbed by my nightmare, which stuck to me like a dark, immovable shroud, and it being my parents' divorce anniversary didn’t exactly help.

As if sensing my thoughts, my mom's eyes darted to the calendar on our white linolium fridge, absolutely covered with magnets and pamphlets or flyers. Instantly, her gaze softened when she recognized the date.

“Hey, it's gonna be okay, baby. I know today will be hard, but you’ll be okay. Plus, your father is still coming for a family dinner this Friday,” she said with a quirk of her mouth, as if that should excite me, as if that fixed everything. I simply nodded as I tried to swallow my last bite of toast, which had turned to sandpaper in my throat.

“Gotta go mom, thanks for breakfast.”

Before she could answer, I quickly grabbed my backpack and was out the door.

I sat in History, staring blankly at the open-ended questions in front of me. Mr. Sikowitz sat at his desk in the front of the class, hunched over papers he was likely grading for a different set of students, his red pen lightly roving and marking with steadfast eyes. I looked back down at the unanswered prompts in front of me and felt my heart start to quicken. Gods, I’m screwed. Dad would be so disappointed, I thought with increasing fear. My breathing became slightly uneven, and with the panic, my nightmare from the night before reached towards the front of my mind.

This was the last thing I needed, but it seemed the more I tried to repress the images and the memory, the harder they fought back.

Shadows began to gather at the edge of my vision, that same smoky starlit sand from the dream clustering along my peripheral. I blinked hard two or three times while keeping my head down, trying to force this contorted melding out of existence through sheer denial, but to no avail… The darkness stayed.

Slowly and with threatening dread, the dregs of my nightmare creeped towards my desk until it surrounded me on every side. I briefly darted my eyes around the room, desperate to find some reaction, any recognition from my classmates of the nightmare unfolding, but I was left wanting. The line between dream and reality was paper thin, blurring further as the familiar wraith-like figures began to swirl upwards and form, then shattered entirely as my nightmare came to life. My mother was again on my right, with a mouth black as pitch and her blue eyes drained of color once more.

“What makes you think you can do this Midge? Answer me Midge. What’s wrong with you? Are you fucking stupid?” she hissed as her ghastly form drifted towards my ear, her teeth nashing with each syllable. It wasn’t exactly the same as the nightmare, but it was damn similar...

Now my father, in his trademark suit and tie, took shape in front of me, causing me to flick my gaze upwards. Looking was a mistake. His usually quaffed hair laid limply on his head, his eyes were endless black holes, and he stood with his arms crossed, intimidating and unmovable despite his form. His slightly transparent clothes were rumpled and worn, which wasn’t like him at all, and he looked at me with a face of disgust and hatred as I’d never known, at least not from him.

“Grow up, Midge! What’s your problem? Why can’t you just get this right!” he shouted, somehow slamming his not-so-solid hand on my desk, causing me to jump to my feet with a yelp, my chair making a loud crash as collateral.

“Ms. Sloan, can I help you with something?”

My head whipped over to Mr. Sikowitz, and just like that, as I met his dark brown eyes, the spell was broken. I looked around and realized that the echo of my nightmare had vanished, and all eyes were on me, as if deciding if they needed to grab the strait jacket now or later. I audibly swallowed. “Um, no, sorry, Mr. Sikowitz,” I said as I haphazardly righted my chair off the ground and sat while keeping my head and eyes firmly down, my dark hair creating a curtain on either side of my pallid face.

The rest of the day passed in an anxiety-filled blur; at every turn and every corner, I looked for the shadows, waited for the starlit sand to reappear and inch along the edge of my vision, anticipating the god awful convergence of my nightmare and reality. But, it never did. I stared out the bus window on the way home, watching the rain spatter the glass in large, heavy drops.

“Hi, honey!” my mom hollered from the kitchen when she heard me walk through the door, her voice warm and rich over the cold I felt in my bones, like a homespun blanket. Our house was a pretty open floor plan, with the kitchen slightly sectioned off but having two large archways on either end of its L-shaped design.

I watched her through this opening for a moment, trying to reconcile the nightmare version of her I saw at school with the flesh and blood in front of me. She was currently unloading the dishwasher, and when her hello was met with silence, she turned to look at me, her arm pausing briefly as she made to put away a plate.

Her face scrunched, and she immediately put the dish on the counter. “What’s wrong, honey? Did something happen at school?”

I tried to speak; I tried to open my mouth to tell her about all of it, but nothing would come except tears that began to blur my vision.

“Oh, honey,” my mom said as she strode over to me, crossing the distance in three or four strides due to her unfairly long legs.

I let her hug me, soaked up the feeling of being wrapped in her arms, and for a solid couple of minutes, we stood in the entryway like that. I reveled in her warmth, the sensation of her solid arms around me, and memorized every detail that made her real. Keeping contact with a hand on my shoulder, she guided me to the couch where we sat, knees angled towards each other.

“Honey, what is it?” she asked. I looked at her, and at first, I could only stutter. As I struggled to form coherent words, I felt my anxiety and panic start to rise. The shadows were at the edge of my vision again, causing my breathing to turn rapid and shallow.

“Honey?” my mom asked, leaning closer. I could barely hear her, barely see her, over the pounding of my own heart.

“Midge!” my mom said, a bit louder now, giving my leg a slight shake as she placed her hand on my knee. The shadows and the darkness were beginning to take shape now, starlit sand rolling across the ground as it crept ever closer. Tears pooled along my lids, causing my vision to blur. Suddenly, warm, soft hands enclosed my face, and my mom's face, my real mom's face, swam in front of me.

“Midge…” she seemed to say in almost a whisper.

“Look at me, look at me,” she said, increasing the pressure around my head.

“You are not broken, okay? I don’t know exactly what you're seeing, but it's not REAL, okay? I’m real, I’m here,” she said, taking the limp hand from my lap and gently placing it over her heart. I felt the softness of her wool sweater under my fingertips, like touching a cloud made of silk. I focused on her eyes, blue just like they’re supposed to be.

Your mom's right here, Midge, right here, not that ghoulish thing of nightmares I thought to myself, as the vile shadow puppeting as her pushed and crowded closer along my peripheral.

“That’s it, baby, I’m right here. Breathe, honey, breathe with me. Focus on my voice, on my face, I’m right here.” She said with a squeeze of my fingers, as she had removed her hands from my head and was now holding my own in her lap, her gaze unwavering. I took a steadying breath - Just breathe, Midge, that’s all you have to do, just breathe. I counted to ten as I inhaled and did the same on the exhale as my mom, keeping hold of my hands, did the same.

“That’s it, honey, breathe, just breathe. Ten in and ten out. You can do this.”

I nodded, and as I expanded my lungs in and out, feeling my pulse start to slow, blessedly, the shadows began to ebb, receding from the edge of my vision. The grotesque, half-formed versions of my loved ones melting and fading away, bit by bit. By about the fifth or sixth of these exercises, the nightmare was all but gone, the shadows having slunk back to whatever hellish mindscape they belonged to.

“There she is…” my mom said with relief, seeing my eyes clear and the panic gone, a slight smile playing on her lips. I crumpled, burying my head into her chest with small sobs.

“Oh, honey…” she let out softly, stroking the top of my head as only a mom can.

“Has this happened before?” she asked gently. I lied, shaking my head slightly, as I kept it tucked into the crook of her arm. Gods, her sweater felt like the softest pillow. I soaked up the comfort.

“Midge…do you know why your father left?”

I whipped my head up, pushing out of her arms, taken aback by the subject change. Realizing I wasn’t going to answer her, she continued, but her face took on a faraway look, as if trying to see through the smog of time to the not so distant past.

“Our family, both the men and the women, have always struggled to master themselves. We have the curse of extreme feeling, of intangible emotions strong enough to drown countries…and for some of us, that leaks into our dreams, and then sometimes those dreams, usually the darkest of nightmares, leak into our reality…”

She shifted her focus back to me and asked with a tilt of her head, “Do you understand what I’m saying, Midge?”

“No, not really…” I mumbled, swallowing and tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

My mom leaned forward, using her thumbs to wipe away my residual tears, and took my hands in hers.

“Honey, what were you feeling? What did you see?” she asked, her blue eyes piercing.

“I... I, uh, I don’t know.” I said, avoiding her gaze.

“I was sitting in class trying to take my test and, well, I wasn’t sure of some answers, and then I was thinking about Dad, and I just, I panicked… then the nightmare started… but no one else could see it… just me.”

At this, I raised my head to look at her with wide eyes, searching for answers or preparing for a straight jacket, whichever came first. My mom pursed her lips, seeming to debate how much she should or shouldn’t say. I saw the moment she decided to bare all, clear as day.

“Honey, you were experiencing a moment of extreme emotion, of anxiety and fear, maybe panic, and sometimes those things can make us forget who we are or even where we are. For the few in our family who have a very special heart, our emotions can cause our worst fears or worst anxieties to come to life. It usually takes an extreme or traumatic event… and given today's date…” she trailed off, her eyes going distant again. After a moment, with a shake of her head, she returned her attention to me.

She made to speak, but I stopped her before she could get a word out, “What happened with Dad?” I asked.

My mom silently opened and closed her mouth, clearly struggling with what to say or how to say it.

“... When it happened to me while I was with your father, he thought I had gone half mad… Mine was a nightmare, too, a wretched one that had me crouched in the corner like a rabid animal. Once we learned of our family history and what some of us have to deal with, he decided he didn’t want to stay with someone who couldn’t trust her own emotions, her own feelings… whose reality and dreams tended to mix and meld until they were one and the same… “ My mom's voice got progressively softer as she spoke, until it was barely above a mere whisper.

“I’m so sorry, mom,” I said, taking hold of her hands and squeezing her palms.

“That’s alright, sweetie,” she responded with a grimace, tucking another strand of chocolate brown hair behind my ear. “You know why?” Her eyes twinkled mischievously.

My brow scrunched as I tried to find anything good in what had so far transpired or what I’d been told.

“Because,” my mom said, clearly seeing I was coming up empty, “it's not just the bad dreams our hearts can bring to life.” She smiled, placing a hand upon my cheek, rubbing small circles against my skin with her thumb. “It’s the good ones, too.”