When I was ten, for three months in a row I dreamt that I was with my family, walking down a sunny dust road. The grass one side was lush, dense and vibrant while the other side was consumed by a dark forest of trees that I couldn't name. I remember how unconcerned I felt as everything was swept about by a breeze I couldn't feel, too busy focusing on where we were going.
The nearest beach to me is all pebble-strewn sand and thick clumps of bladderwrack that my sibling and I used to pop at each other. In my dream we never set foot on the beach, we were always above it. All along the coast were old stone cottages, seeming far too big for any human to live in but somehow full of movement from the inside.
The dust road changed abruptly to glass panels, the beach far below us. We knew we had to watch our step carefully and keep a close eye on the time. The panels would flip every few hours or so to allow for cleaning, leaving anyone still standing on them to be tossed down to the beach below.
It didn't matter how high the tide was or what was swimming beneath the grey waves - they all went down and each had their chance to get to a stone staircase that led back up to the shore. We'd seen people fall down before, I remember their faces pressed against the glass, begging for us to help them.
Every night my dream ended with someone from my family being caught underneath the panels, screaming silently as the water around them grew bloodied. They were always dragged out of sight by long seaweed-green arms. Hundreds of them, all thin with sharp spines poking out.
These dreams stopped when my family took a trip to the beach over in Ireland. It was meant to be closed off that day but my parents insisted that it was fine, the sun was bright and the tide was on its way out. Everything seemed fine until I saw the same arms from my dreams creeping back into the water, carrying seagulls with them.
The nearest beach to me is all pebble-strewn sand and thick clumps of bladderwrack that my sibling and I used to pop at each other. In my dream we never set foot on the beach, we were always above it. All along the coast were old stone cottages, seeming far too big for any human to live in but somehow full of movement from the inside.
The dust road changed abruptly to glass panels, the beach far below us. We knew we had to watch our step carefully and keep a close eye on the time. The panels would flip every few hours or so to allow for cleaning, leaving anyone still standing on them to be tossed down to the beach below.
It didn't matter how high the tide was or what was swimming beneath the grey waves - they all went down and each had their chance to get to a stone staircase that led back up to the shore. We'd seen people fall down before, I remember their faces pressed against the glass, begging for us to help them.
Every night my dream ended with someone from my family being caught underneath the panels, screaming silently as the water around them grew bloodied. They were always dragged out of sight by long seaweed-green arms. Hundreds of them, all thin with sharp spines poking out.
These dreams stopped when my family took a trip to the beach over in Ireland. It was meant to be closed off that day but my parents insisted that it was fine, the sun was bright and the tide was on its way out. Everything seemed fine until I saw the same arms from my dreams creeping back into the water, carrying seagulls with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment