Regarding a dream I had today, lasting a total of 80 minutes, waking up from it shortly after 6 pm on April 1st, 2024, it went as follows:
I approached a seaside Victorian house, its wood paneling darkened from moisture and each window’s blinds drawn tightly shut. The garden in front of it was magnificent, such lush foliage well-manicured into intricate geometric forms and beautiful flowers lining the stone path leading up to the front door. A single yellow-painted wood sign hanging by rusted chains in front of the door with I N N painted haphazardly in dark crimson, spots of the yellow and red paint flaked off to reveal the same dark wood. I entered through the front door without as much as a knock, my mind was split with a strange sense of familiarity but also apprehension with the awareness of the situation, the fact that the house was wholly foreign to me. However, my body had a mind of its own, leading me automatically past the front desk (with no attendant) to the staircase leading down to the floor beneath me (from outside the house was three stories tall, and the garden was situated such that it allowed entry on the second floor but sloped down to the basement level toward the back of the house, allowing for light to enter on the side of the sea).
The hallway from the stairs to where I assumed I was staying was filled with cobwebs all over the ceiling and upper walls, but candles burnt brightly on mahogany side tables, all their legs delicately rendered into the shape of curved dragons. My legs stopped moving on their own before a dungeon-like door, several down from the stairwell. My spatial awareness indicated the paradox I found myself facing, I walked for quite some time to arrive at this door. But shrugged it off and used a key that materialized in my left hand to open it. I opened the heavy door with great difficulty, mustering all my strength to pry it open as it swung with great stubbornness.
Inside, a large rectangular room met me, the door was situated at the left corner and was roughly 30 or more feet wide, and several small windows dotted the opposite wall in formation, letting in diffused bluish light into the room. Like the hallway, cobwebs lined the ceiling. However, an endless supply of paperback novels in waist-high stacks lined the wall, at least several hundred, an unknown language printed on every spine that eluded me of its origins. A large bed was situated on the left wall in front of me, a king-sized bed, a heap of pillows strewn across the mattress with several thick white blankets ruffled amongst the pillows.
Inside, a large rectangular room met me, the door was situated at the left corner and was roughly 30 or more feet wide, and several small windows dotted the opposite wall in formation, letting in diffused bluish light into the room. Like the hallway, cobwebs lined the ceiling. However, an endless supply of paperback novels in waist-high stacks lined the wall, at least several hundred, an unknown language printed on every spine that eluded me of its origins. A large bed was situated on the left wall in front of me, a king-sized bed, a heap of pillows strewn across the mattress with several thick white blankets ruffled amongst the pillows.
Directly across the room facing the left wall was a much smaller but similar bed, with pillows and blankets in heaps. But upon walking up to it, there was a small, frail girl laying on top of the mountain reading the bible, but upside down. I paused at the foot of her bed, not uttering a word, and waited for her to acknowledge me. After a few minutes, she carelessly cast the bible aside let it hit the wall, and then fell to the floor. She looked up at me, mousy brown hair haphazardly tied into a bun on top of her head. Her face was soft, her eyes full of sadness, and small indications of crowfeet forming at the corners of her eyes. She kicked off the single blanket covering the bottom half of her body, revealing her outfit, a cream-colored pair of bloomer shorts and a cropped red tank top with a pink frilled heart hand-sewn onto the front. She scooted herself off the bed, swinging her feet off and letting them dangle off the bed. She looked vaguely familiar, someone I had met somewhere, not in person but she knew my name and face.
“You’ve been gone for a long time. How was it?” she asked, her voice timid and raspy, pursing her lips and looking at me with her large brown eyes.
I only looked back at her with confusion, standing still and raising an eyebrow.
“Oh yeah, I forgot. You never remember anything every time you come back here, you’ve been gone for a few months now,” she said, pausing, “I want to go with you when you leave again.”
I shook my head without any control, still unsure of what she was alluding to. Despite attempts, I could not recall her name, or where I knew her from.
“Mm, I figured. Can we go outside now? It’s almost dark out,” she croaked, walking past me and slipping on a pair of brown suede clogs.
Without hesitation, I followed her as she opened the door with no difficulty, leading me further down the hallway to a frosted glass door.
Indeed it was almost dark, I recalled entering the inn in the early afternoon and we were met with an even more magnificent garden. Flowers blooming with an impossible brilliance grew in large groups, shrouding the girl and me in its beautiful embrace.
Fireflies sporadically concealed within the flowers emitted soft yellow lights, sounds of invisible crickets and the crashing of waves from the sea below served as an atmospheric ambiance to the garden. But I felt something amiss, like in a state of paranoid vulnerability. We walked alongside the garden, the girl stopping every few moments to smell the flowers, letting out a heavy sigh after smelling each one.
We continued walking and looped around the house, where I stopped dead in my tracks to find myself in the presence of three creatures. Each one was similar in appearance, formless primordial slugs, unnaturally pale in complexion, and a Japanese Noh mask attached to their ‘faces’. When we stopped several feet before them, the creatures all collectively ‘looked’ at us, tilting their heads in unison like curious dogs.
“I guess we should get inside now before the others come out,” the girl said.
As if on cue, elaborate gilded frames materialized around the creatures and framed them as if they were paintings. Once the frames finished becoming material, the three creatures turned into two-dimensional objects and their features grew rough like they were rendered with oil paint and began floating to the sky, bumping into one another and drifting away in the sea breeze.
We returned inside, but this time, we walked past the door we emerged from to the opposite end of the long hallway, and met with a dark maw of a doorway leading deeper into the earth. Without a word, she led me downstairs, walking for several minutes down a set of concrete stairs. We entered into an incomprehensibly large underground pool, all fashioned with white marble columns and surfaces. There were however no walls, instead opening up to an endless magenta void, reminiscent of a sort of vapor wave landscape that cast its color onto the marble. The pool itself seemed shallow, but regardless of the size of an Olympic pool, likely larger. The girl revealed a deck of tarot cards in one hand and the exact pair of Damascus scissors my mother used for her ikebana arrangements in the other from behind her, looking into my eyes with a twinkle in her eye.
“Enter into the pool, please,” she requested of me, walking along the length of the pool admiring the water, precariously placing her steps just at its edge, maintaining her balance with elegance.
Without removing my clothes, I leaped into the pool, submerging in the water. Upon opening my eyes underwater, I looked down to see no bottom, just the water fading into blackness. My throat constricted, I had always been afraid of the sea. I frantically swam toward the edge of the pool, reemerging from the water, and clung onto the marble’s edge like an infant to its mother’s bosom. I looked up to find the girl already knelt over me, a Celtic cross tarot spread between her and me.
Her eyes were wide open, pupils constricted, and face full of anguish, “You are doomed,” she murmured, “Here, eat this,” she stretched out her hand, full of clippings of horsetail reeds cut into inch-long segments and handfed them to me, cupping my chin as I ate them one by one, my mouth full of a harshly bitter taste.
I crawled out of the pool and sat beside her, she was intensely studying my face but found myself unable to return her gaze. She sat beside me, moving herself until she was pressed beside me.
I crawled out of the pool and sat beside her, she was intensely studying my face but found myself unable to return her gaze. She sat beside me, moving herself until she was pressed beside me.
“There is one last thing then if this is indeed the last time you will come to visit me. I promise it’s just one last thing.”
She stood up and waited for me, beckoning me with her free hand. I followed her through the same doorway, but this time it descended further down, morphing from just sterile concrete to the underbelly of a subway, overhead rusted pipes and wiring covering every surface. The air grew stale and much hotter at that. We walked into some sort of maintenance platform for a subway, a set of tracks running parallel from where we stood. I could faintly hear a train approaching, its headlights permeating the dim tunnel. Its roar grew louder and louder until it was deafening, and as soon as it was about to cross the tunnel, she lept off the platform onto the path of the oncoming train, immediately turning her into a red mist that coated every surface and my face in fresh blood. I stood in horror at the spectacle that had just unfolded before me. After the train departed and was no longer able to be heard, I lept down onto the track to find any of her remains, only a single eyeball remained. I picked it up between my thumb and index finger, examining the brown iris in shock, and slipped it into my pocket. I looked up from the ground and found another train barreling toward me like an enraged bull.
She stood up and waited for me, beckoning me with her free hand. I followed her through the same doorway, but this time it descended further down, morphing from just sterile concrete to the underbelly of a subway, overhead rusted pipes and wiring covering every surface. The air grew stale and much hotter at that. We walked into some sort of maintenance platform for a subway, a set of tracks running parallel from where we stood. I could faintly hear a train approaching, its headlights permeating the dim tunnel. Its roar grew louder and louder until it was deafening, and as soon as it was about to cross the tunnel, she lept off the platform onto the path of the oncoming train, immediately turning her into a red mist that coated every surface and my face in fresh blood. I stood in horror at the spectacle that had just unfolded before me. After the train departed and was no longer able to be heard, I lept down onto the track to find any of her remains, only a single eyeball remained. I picked it up between my thumb and index finger, examining the brown iris in shock, and slipped it into my pocket. I looked up from the ground and found another train barreling toward me like an enraged bull.
It struck me less than a moment later and I died a painless death, my body rendered into a pink paste without even a sliver of pain.
I awoke to my body shaking uncontrollably and tears streaming down my cheeks, grief-stricken.