dreams and nightmares 


account of a nightmare 

Wasn't sure where I was; somewhere in my old neighbourhood in Caracas which I had never been to. somewhere slightly greener than anywhere else in my crowded overbuilt part of town. There was a railway line zig-zagging through the clearing, I heard the screaming and I ran round the bend in the line and then I saw it.

There was a man tied down to a blue large rectangular box nailed to the railway line. He was screaming in terror, his eyes bulging, his face contorted in the horror of the certainty of what was awaiting him. The most horrible detail was the large drawing in yellow paint or ink over the whole length of the blue box, depicting a sort of stick-man, with a large head on the front panel, with disproportionate large bulging eyes and open mouth obviously screaming in terror. I ran towards him and then I realised. I wasn't really there, I didn't have any sort of corporeal presence and therefore could not do anything to help. It was too horrible to bear so I turned around and with that I was suddenly ini the kitchen upstairs in my old house in Catia. The railway line and the man tied to the box were still there but now they were coming out of my bedroom door. I went in the kitchen and behind the kitchen wall as I heard the train come and crash through the bedroom door frame, blowing the wall in bits in the air with an almighty noise and shaking the house in the middle of a cloud of flying bricks and plaster dust

and then I woke up, sweating and agitated, extremely disturbed and breathing fast and heavily. I had a drink of water, the real world was beginning to penetrate my consciousness but i was still shaken, still could hear the screaming and the roar of the train and the bedroom walls blown to little bits, all of this settling down slowly as the still of the night took over. I turned over and tried to sleep. In the distance the police sirens chased one another in the night. 

Posted: Mon - October 20, 2003 at 09:27 PM          

©