The Same Dream

The way it begins varies but it always ends up the same: I'm in some kind of large store, always with my wife. People are buying strange old things like broken furniture, giant rolled rugs and cardboard boxes. It's extremely colorful and garish, and there are piles of old things just sitting around as if they were garbage but they're for sale too.

I run past all this and I realize I've got something sharp in my mouth. Most of the time it's a bunch of nails but sometimes it's sewing pins or needles or razor blades. I try to find the bathroom but I can't speak to ask where it is, and I have to stop to keep one of them from sliding down my throat, physically by putting my finger in my mouth. It's hard because I can feel the other pins there and they poke my finger.

I finally find the bathroom and it resembles a cross between a YMCA locker room and a slaughterhouse. The floor is made of olive-and-yellow tiny square tiles but it is covered with what I know is small pieces of blood and flesh, each maybe the size of a ball of cotton. I run over to the sink and spit out the pins, but some of them have stuck in my skin. Some have even poked all the way through my cheeks. I pick them out one by one and the holes start to bleed a little.

And that's typically about the time I wake up.

The picture above is by Polish artist Z. Beksinski and is available for sale at this gallery online.