fingers and toes

Awful dream early this morning -
perhaps it is a way of my brain trying to process all this information and emotions that i have been dealing with the past few days?

nonetheless, it's disturbing as hell.

I was in a warehouse. Run down, smelling of urine and wet rags, damp and cold. There had been some sort of concert. By the looks of the people who had attended, i would hazard a guess to say it was some sort of punk/grunge band. Perhaps borderline death metal/cyber punk. The sun was coming up, but the inside of the hangar was grey and shady. People walked around each other, solemnly, disturbed, silent, and dazed. Something horrible had just happened and I was plunked down right in mid step of the action.

Near the back wall, close to a steel door frame which opened out onto another huge room, young girls, and men built like oxen wept beside one another uncontrollably. Half a dozen forensic police members strode in and out of the "room". Police stood outside of the door to "the room", but it seemed that nobody was even remotely curious as to what had happened.

Or perhaps they were too terrified to look.

A rugged weather worn cop nearly walked into me, his head hanging low, stubbly chin pressed against his bulletproof vest.

"Miss, you don't want to go in there."
"What's going on?"
Deep sigh, and wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead he whispered: "I've seen some shit in my time, bad stuff, but this is fucking up even the Captain, and he's been in 'Nam..."


The sounds of chunky puke splashing onto the wet pavement bounced off the walls next to me. I moved away from the corner because the stench was making me hallucinate.

Goth kings and their court jesters dragged their Doc Martens solemnly. Solitary mumbles punctuated the low rumble of disbelief and horror.

What the fuck was going on?!

I wanted to know. I wanted to see. Although my gut said to stay behind and wait for the evening news, my curiosity got the best of me and would not settle for a dinner time homogenized version of this circus of horror.

"I have to warn you, it's nothing like you have ever seen before", came a rumbling staccato voice from over my head. Blocking out the light with his mohawk, backlight like a monolith, the embers from his cigarette fell onto his steel capped boots.

"You look at it, and think - it's not real, but look at her face, into her eyes. Then you'll know that it's not a dream."

Pause. Sounds of tobacco leaves shriveling between his lips.

"It will change you..."

A desperate humidity of panic and paralysis began to press against my skin. More people, yet even more fear began to fill this room with official mechanically weaving in and out of "the room". With each wave, a new story. Another gory detail. Another ziplock bag of death.


Folded like an oriental swan, limbs akimbo, a young woman, could not have been more than 20 years old. Ink black hair, like wet cellophane, covered her translucent  face. I could not see her eyes. Downcast and not blinking. I could have sworn that she had fallen from the sky - landed a disjointed mannequin from an anime cartoon.  Motionless, speechless, lifeless. But she was alive. Hallucinatory rigor, catatonic shock. And the blood. It was everywhere.

Blood so red it was almost black. Deep glossy patent leather textures in the pools that so delicately encircled her, but in my line of sight stood people in yellow HazMat suits. Chemical astronauts examining, walking around this stench of decomposing rot and bile.

Over the murmurs, a delicate voice, matter of factly stating the obvious.
"She puked up the hands, feet. All the toes, one by one. And then she pulled out the skin, like a rope out from her mouth".

Wailing.
Weeping.
Shuffling feet and medics with their yellow toolboxes and oxygen tanks into the direction of the chaos.

Is this true? I asked myself.
"It's the worst thing I have ever fucken seen..."
Apparently, I think out loud.

Beneath a plastic helmet, visor muffling his voice, the forensic photographer began to review his photos.
"wanna see?"


pause.
Gasp.

"Maybe not such a good idea."
Turning his camera off, he removed his headpiece with is free hand. Blinking several times, he began to refocus on my expression and paused.
"I am going to pass the sorting of these things onto somebody else. My day is done. Perhaps so is my career..."

"What happened?"
"She ate somebody. Whole. I had to keep from shitting myself after somebody had called me over to take a picture of the eyeballs."

My deep breaths turned into a mild hyperventilation.
Calm, calm. It's just a dream...

"Who is she?"
Trench coat detective with 50 pounds to lose waddled over to me.
"Nobody knows. Nobody knows."
Silence
Listing the events, he continued: "She apparently stumbled in shitfaced drunk off her ass, fell to the floor, began to scream and convulse. That ain't your typical tv dinner either..."


The smell. 
Oh God. The smell.
It began to strip the hairs from my nose. Rancid turpentine mixed with blood and boric acid. 100 feet away was now beginning to be too close.

it's just a dream, it's just a dream...

I had begun to employ a technique that I had modified based on the way Ceasar Milan trains aggressive animals. Same principle - when the dog begins to "change gears", from passive to aggressive, a simple touch, or yank of the chain will metaphorically snap the dog's mind back into neutral again.

Immediate and instantaneous distraction.

The moment i began to focus on the details, the pencil thin painted fingernails, the round stubby toes covered in yellow chunks of puke and beer, SNAP!
I visually touched that image and shrunk it down to a small grey balloon, and then popped it.

gone!

I had to do this several times. Every element was so overwhelming. The sounds, the smells, the visuals. Each thing had to be tacked separately. One by one. A laborious and disturbing task because each grey balloon quickly re-inflated to its original size and vivid image over and over again. But after what seemed to be several painful minutes, i was able to walk backwards from where i came, touching each pocket of visual information and shrink it down to a lump of coal the size of a paperweight.

Backing out of the warehouse, i shrunk that down and said: "you will never bother me again. I get rid of you and all your disturbing images. You have no more power over me."

funny, as i type this and remember these elements, I feel as if i am an impartial observer to this hallucinatory circus. The images, albeit disturbing, are not mine anymore. I have no more ownership of them, therefore do not own me.



Oh what i would not do for a NORMAL night of happy dreams and peaceful sleep!!!