Intro

I’ve been haunted by the same recurring dream for a long time now.

It all started after the accident.

The strange thing is, though I change, the dream stays the same,

but its meaning is always different,

like a psychedelic, nightmarish Rorschach test stuck in my mind.

It begins like this:

I’m in a room

surrounded by black and white walls.

There are no doors.

When I move closer to a wall, it slips away.

The room grows wider, taller,

but never emptier.

Even when the walls vanish from sight,

I still feel them.

They’re still there.

Then I walk

further, deeper,

until I find it:

a massive oak tree.

There’s a door in its trunk.

I open it.

Inside, a space impossibly vast,

overflowing with art.

I search for a wall to hang Caravaggio’s Medusa,

but there are no walls.

Yet somehow, the room keeps shrinking.

I feel it closing in around me.

I’m suffocating.

Water is everywhere.

Paintings by the great masters float beside me,

mocking me.

The only thing that doesn’t move

is David by Michelangelo.

I just know he’s filled with air.

I know what I must do.

With the last of my strength, I swim toward him.

I bite his head off.

He shatters.

The walls shatter,

and the water carries me away.

(Shatters. Shatters. Shatters.)

(David by Michelangelo. David.)

(Caravaggio’s Medusa.)

I wake on a beach,

alone,

stranded.

Clouds drift above me.

One of them looks like you.

I laugh, because I know…

clouds don’t have faces.

(Clouds don’t have faces.)

I’m falling asleep and waking up at the same time.

Is the dream over?

(Is the dream over? Over. Over.)

Or is it just beginning?