Wild: Ariel

Last night I had a dream. It started like my good dreams do, with flashes, but it didn't end that way.

There was a ship on clear water under a clean sky. People I knew manned that boat, random people. Katie was there, but so was Schultz and a choir teacher I had in middle school. So were the boys I played with in elementary school. Lots and lots of people, from every walk of life. Some I knew better than anyone else; others I'd glimpsed in the street or at a theme park. People. Hundreds. Thousands.

Suddenly, flash--as only dreams can do, flash--and there was a storm. The sails were on fire. Lightning and a dark, angry sky. People were swimming, escaping, nearly everybody lived.

And for a minute I think, oh, this is actually pretty okay, I mean that was scary, but they're all fine, right?.  Wrong.

Mermaids pulled one down at first, speaking secrets in her ears while she struggled for breath. Angry, hungry mermaids, the real type of mermaid--the carnivorous kind. Lifeboats, too, pulled down from the water in their claws. Their laughter mixes with the screams. The angry sky, pelting the world with its issues, is ignored. The wreck of the ship breaks in half and sinks, a veritable Titanic.

I watch them struggle. I watch them die. I don't have a choice; I so rarely wake up from these. I wake up in tears. Finley isn't there; he's in the Shower. I'm not due up for another hour. I hug myself until I hear the water stop and then I change into my work clothes, holding back everything, holding back the noises and the sights of my terrors.

"Ready, Payton?" Katie, I realize with a pang, she was in my dream, and she was the first to be claimed by the Mermaids! They were pulling on her hair, they were munching on her ankles. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I have these?

"Yes," I answer, striding into the car.

I send a text: "Heeeeeey theeeeere. You didn't by any chance drown last night did you?"

"Nope."

I'm starting to fear falling asleep again. If it isn't about Ryan--none of these dreams lately have to do with him--then why? Why does my mind do this to me? I wish I had someone to protect them, the people who get victimized just because I see them in my life.


Moreover, I wish I knew a way to protect me.... from myself.

After work, the pictures, the sounds, swim in my memory again, begging for my attention. When people ask me how I am, I say, "Fine."

But today, that was a lie. I wasn't fine. I'm still not fine.


....I don't want to sleep....