I have nightmares. All the time.
There are the usual ones. The ones you'll never hear about. And then there are the truly terrifying ones that words trivialise and make silly.
The most recent was that my town, surrounded in evergreen and ash tree forest, woke up to find that the healthy trees were dying. The ash has turned grey and brittle. The evergreens has turned red and rusty. The dead or dying ones had disappeared entirely. All that was left was a bleeding skeleton of our forest, completely deserted by countless animals who has taken up residence in the vast forest just hours before.
I was in charge of taking money from people for their government taxes. They'd come up to me, mere shells of themselves, and feebly hand over their bills. The healthy were dying. The ill were in piles where they had fallen, unable to take another step. The dying had simply disappeared. But my coworkers were fine. And I was fine aside from the endless piece of hair that had entangled itself in my teeth and having to take money from the walking dead.
It all happened overnight. I called it The Half Life. And there was nothing we could do except record who had paid, figure out who was never paying again, tell people that the pine trees were not changing into autumn colors but dying just like they were and that there was nothing we could do about it, and keep pulling out and wrapping up the never-ending hair caught in my teeth.
I woke up more terrified that I can remember being in a long time.
There are the usual ones. The ones you'll never hear about. And then there are the truly terrifying ones that words trivialise and make silly.
The most recent was that my town, surrounded in evergreen and ash tree forest, woke up to find that the healthy trees were dying. The ash has turned grey and brittle. The evergreens has turned red and rusty. The dead or dying ones had disappeared entirely. All that was left was a bleeding skeleton of our forest, completely deserted by countless animals who has taken up residence in the vast forest just hours before.
I was in charge of taking money from people for their government taxes. They'd come up to me, mere shells of themselves, and feebly hand over their bills. The healthy were dying. The ill were in piles where they had fallen, unable to take another step. The dying had simply disappeared. But my coworkers were fine. And I was fine aside from the endless piece of hair that had entangled itself in my teeth and having to take money from the walking dead.
It all happened overnight. I called it The Half Life. And there was nothing we could do except record who had paid, figure out who was never paying again, tell people that the pine trees were not changing into autumn colors but dying just like they were and that there was nothing we could do about it, and keep pulling out and wrapping up the never-ending hair caught in my teeth.
I woke up more terrified that I can remember being in a long time.
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
ki1:
that sounded like a story from a john connolly novel. did you wake up in a sweat? nightmares. hate 'em.
trocar:
Some men seek fame, others have it thrust upon them. I don't know where I stand on that scale because I've never put much thought into it. Your interpertation of the colder seasons are very unusual and abstract, my house is opposite to a cemetery (I know there's a joke in there somewhere, a funeral director living by cemetery) and this season reminds me of a long, drawn-out burial. "the soil yearns for its own to be complete, but a burial mound will never look as neat."