Of puppets and dreams: A short tale

She had to be dreaming, she knew that much; why else would she have that much hair sitting in lustrous strands on top of her head, brushing against her shoulders like a mane of silk? And she knew she’d been dreaming because of how it felt so natural, so very ordinary to walk on that path utterly nude, when in reality, she had a hard time stripping naked even in front of her husband.

She walked forward, knowing too well that there was no turning back, for she had been trapped in the same dream many times before. She walked aimlessly and timidly, and it seemed that the silence engulfed her as she went; it touched her ears first, then her eyes and soon, her arms and chest and her whole being fell cocooned against it; not her heart though. Never her heart.

In a distance not far away, she saw the derelict shed; it stood alone and ghastly at the end of the path. It couldn’t have been more ruined than the last time she was here, could it? This was a dream after all, and in dreams, time and depreciation didn’t exist.

Or did it?

Her nose picked up smells that neither belonged to the new detergent she’d used on their sheets, nor to the bitter cologne her husband wore. And while her house buzzed with the sounds of passing cars from the street down below, her husband’s snores and the white noise she desperately needed to listen to while she slept, here, she didn’t hear anything at all.

She knew what she will find behind the closed door of the shed. This hadn’t been her first rodeo. She had been horrified and completely heartbroken the first time she had been trapped in this dream, but slowly, she had braved the ache, and she had swallowed her emotions, much like how she did in the waking world.

Still, as she pushed the door open, and cringed at its frightining creak, she had to pause and clasp her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream. And oh God, she wanted to scream so loud.

There had been books everywhere — on top of a wooden table in the middle of the room, piled neatly against a wall, a few thrown on the ground of a small and strange looking, of what appeared to be a kitchen, one or two splayed open beside her feet as she stepped inside.

Arrows of the sun touched the wooden floor, and a gentle breeze came through the window left ajar.

The silence followed her, and when she closed the door, the sound of the wind went away too. She took a deep breath and scrunched her nose up with disgust. She hadn’t noticed it before, but something had rotted nearby, leaving a distinct metallic scent that made her stomach churn. She moved forward, like she usually did, because any minute now, she would reach the end of the shed, and she would wake up. But today, she had only reached half way when she slipped over something slimy and warm.

She put her hands on the floor to haul herself to stand and felt something wet under her palm. She stared at her blood-stained hand. That nauseating smell had been the smell of fresh blood; not of a rotten animal.

She looked at the blood under her legs; it had seeped through the open books beside her too; books with familiar titles and gibberish writings she didn’t understand. She tried to stand up once more, but she felt pained and weak. Her nakedness that hadn’t bothered her until then, suddenly became a nuisance and she wished she had something to throw over herself so she would stop shaking like that. The pain in her bottom half became more and more until it became unbearable. She wanted to crawl into a giant ball and weep.

Why was she still dreaming? Why wouldn’t she wake up?

She hugged herself, bloody hands and all, and tried to bring warmth to her frozen limbs. But seconds passed, and she felt weaker and the smell of blood, became stronger.

And then she knew.

She’d been sitting in her own pool of blood. It leaked out of her body and into the wooden floor and it disappeared somewhere within her dream. The thought made her brain to shut off completely, but she had already fallen into the abyss by the time her head hit the ground.

“Did you have a nightmare again?”

The End.