Stupor

Stupor...

In this realm of dreams I lay as my head rests again.

---

A small boy stands on the curb of a standard neighborhood block. His skin is of light complexion, and his hair is a very fair blond. He wears his Grey school uniform, and on his lapel is the black and white skull crest of his school. In his hand is a large metal lunch box that nearly overwhelms him, but he refuses to let his weakness show. Soon, a black school bus pulls up, and the dark doors retract, opening. The bus is empty. No passengers, no driver. The untimely chirping of birds breaks the silence. A cold gust of wind urges him onto the bus. He climbs up onto the high step, clumsily though with a nameless grace, and the doors close behind him.

---

I am in a classroom. Faceless peers sit around me, their heads straight forward, without any expression. The walls are blurred. At the front of the classroom stands an ancient grizzled woman. She wears a Grey drab dress that hangs limply on her body, outlining her lacking, emaciated form, and falling to her feet. Her colorless hair is pulled back into a bun, which amplifies the effects of her high cheekbones and lined skin. The irises in her eyes have no color. She shares with her class the blank, emotionless stare.
On the wrap-around desk in front of me is a sheet of lined paper. A single repeated word covers it entirely. “Blah”, the void of all passion, conceals it. A strong urge compels me to stand, and as I grip my paper softly in my hands and step forward to the woman, she smoothly extends her left arm, fingers splayed, and I place my paper in her hand.
Suddenly and very mechanically, her hand clamps shut, sufficiently crushing it. She spreads her thin lips open and puts the crumpled wad of paper into her mouth. She swallows. Merely a second later, her right arm is robotic dyed, and her greyGreypulled back, revealing her palm. In her palm is engraved the letter A. The clammy skin is freshly broken, and as the flesh peels away, the new blood seeps into the form of the A. I don’t move. I watch as the blood begins to pool in the center of her hand, where it eventually crusts over.

---

A black chalkboard stretches twenty feet or so from the outlandishly long ceiling to the floor. And on it are the sketchy letters that formed the words, “All my thoughts are sick and sordid. All I am is twisted, morbid.” The phrases are repeated over and over again as I continue writing it. Eventually, the piece of chalk in my bloody, blistered hand wears down to nothing, yet I persist, scratching with my nails the words into the chalkboard.

---

Each morn, as the sun fractures the shifting hues of the sky, I lay in my bed, freed from my sick twisted dreams, yet entrapped in my self, unable to awaken completely. In this condition, my mind has risen from its subconscious rest, yet my senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, are still buried in the depths of myself.
And in this state, I am only able to think, to paint words on the black canvas of my inner self, to read and repeat them, and to reflect the images of my dreams, nightmares if you will. The frail boy, unmoving, increasingly aware of how fake his world is and how perfect everyone deems it; the bloody hand of the teacher, as it forms the scab of the letter A, revealing how little yet how much expectation is embodied in the world of today; my wounded hand, the blisters erupting and nails worn down, exposing the determination of my ghastly phrases; all images of my dreams, painted on that cursed canvas, intertwined to confuse, for me to dwell over and return to the horror of, for I cannot tear my subconscious eyes away.
The uncontrollable fear that I succumb to devastates me, and I beat the walls of my trance to let me out, though the boarders of my insanity don’t collapse at my will. But the horror, the endless panic that this might be the morning that I can’t escape from my invincible prison envelopes me, and leaves an indescribable sensation in the depths of my stomach that I know is there but is not substantial to me.
And in this state I remain until the penetrating shriek of my alarm clock shatters my stupor, for me to finally awake and face the reality that I must return.