Life's Lyrics 9 - Bad

Mud Note: This is a short story and a work of fiction based around the U2 song lyric ... and a recurring dream. Maybe the other way around. But still.

Josh woke up in a panic and a cold sweat. Again. His eyes darted around the blackened room looking for a clue as to where he was at the moment. Recently, there’d been too many alternating dark rooms and he couldn’t place his exact location.

He felt the sheets under his back. They were damp. He tilted and used the corner of the pillow case to wipe the moisture from his upper lip like a napkin. His hair stuck to his forehead as he turned back over and he scraped his fingers upward to push the strands away. They stuck up toward the headboard in the humidity. He coughed. Given the reverberation and echo from the room he figured out he was home.

"Shit," he said aloud to himself at the realization that his own bed felt foreign. His arms fell back to the bed with a thud. He didn't even recognize home.

He’d had that same dream again. It was a recurring dream started in his childhood that crept in whenever a fever would break. It was nearly the same every time now, no fever needed. Large geometric shapes of squares, spheres, and pyramids in blue and black moved when not looked at, all getting secretly closer and crowding, like modern chess pieces in a game where Josh didn't know the rules. And lately, they appeared with large, protruding words etched into them. "Surrender... Dislocate... Isolation... Revelation."

Not a scary dream, really. Shapes and words. Sesame Street, right?! Josh could always sort of shrug off the dream's lingering feeling later in the day with ease. It was sort of like being scared of clowns. During the light of the day, it can be laughed away as childish. Life goes on. But even as an adult at 3 in the morning these geometric shapes held specific power. There were more of them and they were getting bigger. And they were coming to get him more often these nights. This was the fifth sleep in a row, skipping a few nights of non. It was either, dream and surrender to their onward, growing progression each night, or stay wide awake. Twist and turn away. Tear himself in two, again. Or ...

Josh got up. If nothing else, he needed to let the sheets air in the cool night. He stopped to make sure his old dog was still watching out for the night noises downstairs. He heard the old boy breathing. Breathing was good. Josh paused with resolution. So, he continued on.

He flipped on the bathroom light and stared at a man he hardly knew. He looked pale. He needed to shave. He was scratchy. What, three days ago? His eyes were blood shot, remnant of crying himself to sleep. What, five nights now?

Reality returned to his clouded mind and he remembered his battles of the previous days. And of the day yet to come.

He felt his way outside to the porch and walked into the night air. It was comforting at first. There was a slight drizzle from the fog and a soft breeze. His wind chime sounded quietly ever so often. There remained a certain calm to the night when awake, especially tonight.

But Josh still just felt restless, numb to the agitation that was ahead of him coupled with a growing tension of things yet unresolved. He tried to strengthen his mood and reflected back to sailing at midnight when he was a teenager and that uplifting life of promise he once owned outright. He likened himelf a Knight once upon a time. A good guy. Yet, he now thought of himself split in befores and afters. He wished to free his spirit, to just walk, walk away, out into the night and through the rain, into the half-light.

But he was not that brave or maybe cowardly. He wasn't sure.

Josh took a few deep breaths and readied himself for a Zen battle. The night air he owned. It was his. He liked it. He liked it a lot. He breathed deeply. Armor. Strength.

He turned and almost marched back to the king bed and planted himself squarely in the middle. He closed his eyes concentrating on releasing the tension from his toes that insisted on the metronome tap to the song in his head. Tomorrow there would be one less big, black shape. Tomorrow. Josh would win another day. It will be a battle. He'll cry, but he'll conquer another. It will be bad. But, he'll win. Check!

Desolation.

Let it go. And so fade away. Let it go.

Wide awake. Wide awake. Not sleeping.