A Prompt Response

Shit.

Awake again. I think.

No. Yes. Yes, okay, good. At least I’ve figured one thing out.

Now to figure out how not to fall back there when asleep, that is the next thing.

Heart beats so hard. Where do the breaths go? I can’t get them to slow. Come on. Calm down. Think. Think.

If I let go, I’ll be back there. I’ll be back where I started. It’s happened enough to know that’s what’s in store. But I don’t know what else to do. Can’t run away from my own head. Can’t stay up. Tried, but dropping off when I’m not ready is too disturbing. And I have to sleep sometime. The dreams are so intense I’m still exhausted when I wake. It’s lucky I do wake. I’m sick of falling off a cliff. That feeling never gets easy.

Jesus. Okay. So I know it’ll all change but at least I’ve seen further than before. At least I understand where I’m going. Kinda. One step at a time I guess.

It’s like the most fucked up video game experience ever. Good thing I’ve got unlimited ‘lives’. Maybe. Wish I could press restart. Or better yet, see the words ‘game over’ light up above my head. Then maybe I could boot up a different dream. Is that how I works?

It’s like a big maze, but made of the entire city. The entire world that I drop into every night. It’s a matter of finding the right people and the right doorways, the right questions and turns. And knowing when to step off and try a different way. And it goes on and on, ad infinitum, it seems. Different interactions lead me to different relationships, different reference points to other rooms. None of them look the same, but they function similarly and I know when I’m in the right place, as if I’d laid down bread crumbs on a previous night. Or something that wouldn’t scatter. Like spray paint. Or twine. But invisible. I can sense it somehow. Deja vu, I guess. Even when things look all different I still know where I’ve been.

Dream memory. Does that exist? Does the dream me have a life with memories to fill in for all the time I’m awake? How else do I know about all the people I run into? It’s not like they are from real life. But I have memories of them as friends from whatever thing I was part of once. That other dream where we were pirates. Heh.

But just when I get comfortable, like I’m making some progress—might finally find the way out or the door that reveals the answer—someone or something pulls the rug out from under me and I fall. Whether it’s a betrayal or a dead-end alley, a knife in the back or a shattering word, I always end up falling as I wake. Fall asleep, fall awake. Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually getting out of it. Maybe I just keep going deeper in.

I’ve tried every cheat and hack I can think of. I need to just not fall into the dream when I fall asleep. Is that possible? To just fall into a world of darkness and nothing? The land of dreamless sleep. But that’s not a place I wanna go yet. Cuz it’s for keeps. No visiting there. That decision is final. Dunno if i’m to that point yet. There are enough twists and turns left in me that I haven’t abandoned all hope of finding the way out.

Or finding the thing I fell for to begin with. What was I chasing all those months ago that got me into this labyrinth? That image. The beautiful one I caught a glimpse of behind glass once. I’d follow that one anywhere, honestly. It was just so perfect. But I blinked. And then it was gone. I’d rather spend my nights searching for the image of that perfect person till I can’t go on than spend my days without it. I’m close on the trail tho. Following him around, finding the places I can tell he’s been to, one by one.

Maybe I’m not following my own bread crumbs from times before. Maybe I can just pick up his scent after he’s passed through. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Come play, pretty one. I won’t bite unless you want me to. I’ve been looking for someone like you for ages. And I’ve been checking round corners for you so long now you feel like an old friend…

God, I’ve been in the dream maze so long I have no idea if I’m the one chasing him or if he is pushing me on somewhere, to something. Dunno what it could be, unless it’s finally figuring out his identity. I fear he will be a monstrosity that only looks fair in a mirror. That I’ve been seduced by a reflection. Or worse yet: that it’s just a mirror image of me. That I’m just chasing an imaginary image of myself around a fictitious world until I go mad or kill myself. Or both. I might have already accomplished one of those. Or maybe the other. Maybe when I close my eyes I’ll finally see nothingness. Maybe that last fall was one too many. Maybe this light that I think is dawn is actually the one that will lead me eternally home.

And maybe I just don’t want to get up this morning. Maybe I have no will to live my waking life if I can’t see the image of that dream boy in my mirror.

(Maybe I should go check to see if he has finally caught up with me….)