Message from a dream.

It seemed as if all the children in her circle of friends were born in the same month. Over the last week, she received as many as three invitations. She loved children, but three parties so close together was a bit much. She couldn´t explain why it made her so uneasy this year.

Lately, her mind seemed to want to dive into unknown depths. It was familiar territory; she had been there a few times before. She had worked very hard to forget the darkness, but no matter how hard she tried; it kept creeping up. All kinds of strange ideas kept invading her mind. It made her feel scared and paralyzed.

She went shopping for birthday presents and bought the same thing for the horde of birthday kids: a memory box. She wasn´t able to paraphrase why; she simply was drawn to it. she never had a box or a trunk to store treasures. Just an empty space of broken dreams. Why would she want to store such a strange childhood in a treasure trove anyway? 

She had the gifts beautifully wrapped in the store, and dutifully presented herself at every party she was invited to.

At the first party, the children had to find a book first, which had a series of clues in it and a collection of riddles, which lead to the discovery of a treasure. She didn´t stay till the precious prize was uncovered though.

At the next party, a storyteller was invited. She sat and listened. The kids kept asking for an encore of the fairy-tale. Funny how children love to hear the same story over and over.

The last party was a pinkalicious happening. There was a strict dress code: everyone had to wear pink. Of course, she was happy to oblige.

Lately, she slept uneasily. Maybe too much sugar at those birthday bashes. Strange dreams kept visiting her. flashes of distant memories running wild in her unconscious. Then she would get sucked out of the dream and brutally thrown back on her bed, covered in sweat. A streaming course of feelings leaving her bewildered and numb at the same time.

She would lay staring at the ceiling as if still entrapped in the dark atmosphere of the dream that woke her from her slumber.

During the day a cloud of sadness started to enrobe her – an all too familiar feeling as well. Dormant memories trying to be retrieved, looking for a sense of comfort while draining the life out of her.

Maybe there no outrunning it anymore. Was any of it real? The string of angry words shouting in her head, or the ghostly evils floating unwarranted before her eyes? Maybe she was losing her mind…

When did it all start? Was it the invitations to those children´s parties that triggered this tidal wave? This black hole she found herself in and sapped her of all meaning. Nothing made sense anymore, and still, she plummeted deeper, into an endless chasm.

Nothing made sense anymore. Everything became unbearable. Her condition was more profound than loneliness. Before she went to sleep, she would stare into a void. There was such bleakness there. and such clarity in that nothingness. Too tired to move, too restless to stay still. She had the means to live, but something prevented a meaning to live for.

Is this really what you want, she asked herself one night, this purgatory?

She thought she was awake but remained asleep nonetheless. Something was not quite right. She realized she was still dreaming. There was a tense and ominous feeling: a foreboding of monsters. She felt like she was separated from her body.

What was she supposed to do now? How did she end up here?

A Russian nesting doll caught her attention. It fell apart. She bent over to pick up the parts, but a black cat appeared out of nowhere and snatched them all away. The cat ran towards a red door. Such a bright vivid red color. This door; was it an entrance, an exit, or a dead end? She hesitated for a moment, then opened the door and went inside. She was standing in a bedroom that looked familiar to her. In the middle of the small room was a high-end bed, with a picture laying in the middle of it. This wasn´t a photograph but a memory. There was something almost poetic about this hazy image of a woman. She picked up the picture as if she might be able to enter it through its edges.

There was another presence in a dark corner of the room. Air started rushing past her face. She was falling, ever faster until she woke up in her own bed, left with a fascinating and strange experience of something very familiar.

There´s never a before in a dream. Only an afterward when you wake up. Who was that woman in the picture on that bed in her dream? If she could free that girl-like woman from her incomplete poem that encapsulated her, would she maybe recognize something of her beholder in herself? Or would it just prove to be a lie? Or something worse…

The dream kept haunting her, but she felt a strange sense of comfort in that. After a couple of days, she no, longer knew if she actually remembered the dream and the photograph in it, or just the memory of it. maybe she was injecting illusory speculations in a dreamt-up memento. She wished she had the ability to validate the message of her night tome reverie. If only there had been a voice in the stillness of the image she found in the dream. Maybe, after all, that was all it was: just a dream. Was there wisdom in recognizing that?

She had worked extremely hard to leave the bare facts of her family history behind her. she still bore the scars to prove that it once had been an all-to-real nightmare. She did her best to break away and paid a price for having done so. Her childhood had been a string of strange events. There were no fond memories. Even events that should be described as happy were always clouded with a sense of sadness.

She started to wonder if she would be able to cover her whole life in just one page. A collage maybe, just a few slices perhaps. A sense of fear captured her every time she picked up the pen to take the plunge in the page before her. how could she pollute such an immaculate white space with so much blackness?

Could she trust her memory? What was she hoping to find in just a few lines on a single page? A reason for her existence? What if she cut out all the letters, put them in a jar, and shook them up? Let them come again in no order: no beginning, no middle, no end. What would she read then? Would she be able to make or fake a smile, even half a smile?

There must have been moments of beauty. What if those were underserved or stolen? Maybe she didn´t dare to recall.

She woke up at dawn. It was still too early to get out of bed. There were bubbles circling around her bed. She didn´t even question her mind. She could weep at the beauty of the dancing bubbles. A tear rolled down her cheek. When was the last time she cried? The tears just went away. 

Why did she stop following her dreams? Did she listen once too often to what people said she couldn´t do or was she perhaps too scared to succeed?

She sat up and looked at the bubbles still circling her bed, waved goodbye at them, and went into the kitchen. She pushed the button on the coffee machine and let herself float away on the aroma of the coffee that started to fill the room. What was the first truth she ever encountered? Nobody ever noticed she was forced into adulthood. She was always surrounded by people who turned a blind eye to her precarious childhood and never saw her. She retreated into her own interior with a large staircase to the underworld and fictionalized her life into a realm of dreams where she could erase herself into a silent story in a book with no words: a mute photograph.

Her dream came crashing back before her eyes! There must have been a meaning after all. She walked back to her room and stood in front of a large mirror.

- “Who invited you here?” she asked her reflection, “Why are you staring at me? Did you slip out of a corner of my mind?”

She covered her eyes with her hands. Where did I go? She thought, where did I get lost?

- “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” she whispered, “show me my mind!”

She could feel something wanting to crawl to the surface. Something sad and lonely. Something wanting to break free from a burden. Something craving light and warmth, searching joy.

Why did she always stay in the background? Always waiting for something. Another outcome.

She threw herself back on her bed and thought of her dream. Where did it come from? It would come back. Whatever falls away, eventually comes back, right? Sorrow falls away too if you let it.

She sank back into a deep slumber. A dark sleep. Spiders! She´s scared of those big black spiders. Where did they come from? She can´t run. She´s in a cage. She must get out! There´s a door: strange to find a door in a cage. She felt as if she was drowning. She had to open that door. What will she uncover behind that door? A basement! Such an ugly place. No, she can´t go down there; she simply can´t. it´s dirty down there and full of rot. There are probably rats there too. Her head is so heavy. It´s dark and so scary there. it is so frightening to confront that dark.

- “Somebody help me!” she tried to scream. No voice, she has no voice. 

Secrets lurk there: abuse, torture, shame…

There´s somebody with her. She´s not alone. She hears a match strike. For a very brief moment, the light reveals a woman. She lights an oil lamp and then she vanishes.

With a shock, she fell back in her bed. That woman with the match and the lamp: was she the same as in her previous dream? She had felt a presence there too. Could it be?

She tried as hard as she could to remember the face, but it wouldn´t come back to her. all she knew was that she had a sadness about her. why was she there? did she come to rescue her from that awful basement where ghostly evils dwelled?

A streaming course of vague and distant memories started to run wild through her head. A cloud of sadness engulfed her as well, but then familiar smells started to fill her nostrils. The smell of peppermint and the fragrance of cologne. A hint of nostalgia washed through her. A sentimental yearning for a former place in a distant time. not events, or parties, or holidays. No, nothing like that. Warm moments: recollections of damp soils and lush forests. Of escape from chaos… of a woman. A most remarkable woman! A woman who once knew all the things she was dreaming of.

Doubts crept up. Was this real? I lie all the time to tell myself the truth, she thought. I want to recall! I want to linger in the sweetness of a few happy moments. I grant them permission to waft into my consciousness and bring some color into my black interior. Lilies of the valley, a myrtle mad august…

She started to smile. Sugary vapors, pot roasts, and sweet potatoes. A repertoire of a far and lost connection: hers!

She could see her now: clearly. She could hear her laughter. She was with her in a little garden, planting succulents, to ward off the thunder god and evil spirits. They were baking a pie together. Her face was so bright.

Sweet images kept coming back: sitting amongst wildflowers, gazing at the stars, capturing fireflies in a jar. Thoughts of love and absent goodbyes.

Her grandmother: the woman in the yellowed picture she found in a dream. The only person who ever showed her kindness as a child. Yes! Her grandmother came to her in a dream; telling her to put on the light!

The light of the lamp lit with a single match revealed the shame that concealed her innocent child self. In that light, shame had no power. She would no longer be willing to make deals with the future or dread life. No more going around begging for a living. She would stop being the destitute child. It was time to claim her heritage!

She would forgive herself for acting like she never met herself, for hiding and running and all the secrets she kept from herself. She would forgive herself for deceiving herself. And no! she would not repent. And she would never let that light from the lamp unshine again. Ever!