'Of Heliconia and Television'

"...Who brought me here?,
Forsaken, depraved and wrought with fear;
Who turned it off?
The last thing I remember now.
Who brought me here?
Forsaken, depraved and wrought with fear;
Who turned it off?
The last thing I remember now:
Who brought me here?..."

~'Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt' by The Mars Volta~

As far as my already-beginning-to-fail memory can take me, one of the worst nightmares that i've ever had, revolved around me being in the garden of my uncle and aunt. It was a fairly big garden with plenty of ornamental plants which (a few) i could name scientifically: a year and a half back, when i was taking up the subject. I was around 5 or 6 i think when this nightmare came to me.

I was running through the garden in my dream: barefooted on the soft grass which was mildly still fresh with dew, leaving visible trails of my romp. And right before a circular structure which grew big red heliconia/s, i stood suddenly deadstill. It was morning, in my dream. But the moment i stared at what stood among the heliconia/s, everything turned to a grey, dim, and dark canvas of horror.

It was a woman.

She was just standing, probably right in the centre of the plants and stared at me. What disturbed me more in this dream than the fact that she was a stranger, a person whom i've never seen before in my whole life, was this: in place of her eyes were circular discs. Spinning discs which looked like hypnotic wheels. They kept spinning and spinning, but i'd still know that it was me that she was looking at.

I stayed up the whole night crying, while mum tried to convince me that it was nothing but my imagination.

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Another nightmare that i can remember up till now, was one with more elements and progressions (I was after all, 16).

I was walking through a dead city, dark and colourless. It was probably at the end of the world where this took place, it looked like a place where a nuclear fallout of sorts had occured. Cars as dead as everything else, parked recklessly by the curbs; buildings all slowly deteriorating, paint peeling; but no one was to be seen.

Then i came to an electrical appliance shop, broken down but with people. And these weren't ordinary people. They were bald and sexless as far as i could tell. They all stood in front of a television set, staring into the screen as if their lives depended upon it. All fixed and attentive to what was being shown. I made my way through some of them to see what it was.

This was what i saw:

There was a tall and marvelous tree, of which i cannot name it's genus or species. Below the tree was a huge lion, majestic and frightening; waiting and plotting. And it could talk.

Up on the branches were 2 wingless cherubs (Well, sometimes i guess you can just name the things in your dreams...). They were sitting together, and whenever they talked; their voices were layered and sung. Each sentence was a musical piece, and in it were parts beautifully constructed with bass, tenor, alto and soprano melded into One.

It was basically this: one of the cherubs wanted to go down to the lion because it believed that the lion 'just wanted to be friends'. The other cherub refused to leave the branch and pleaded to the other not to as well: singing their argument to a lion which had eyes so cunningly red and evil, that it had personally led me to believe that it was a representation of something more dark and wicked.

And every once in a while the lion spoke its' words to convert and to persuade them to come down.

I was tense as i watched the scenes unfold, but as i found out; it was all about this now, and nothing else.

Finally, the cherub which had the conviction that the lion was of no harm, made its way down from its' branch, slowly edging towards the base of the great tree. Its' partner was now hysterical: crying and begging it to come back, that the lion is the trickster and that it would be killed most horribly.

And painfully i watched.

The cherub reached the ground, and now was walking among the fallen, dried brown leaves; inching closer to the huge lion. The lion was waiting for it to come closer. And as it was, the lion was smiling.

By now the cherub above was almost convulsing: A hundred choruses of caveat but all on deaf ears.

As it reached the lion, the cherub raised its' hand to touch the lion. A sign of acceptance and welcome.

The moment it was inches away from the lion, the lion caught it and lunged for the cherubs' head. It was at this precise moment that i turned away from the dream-television-screen.

I was very disturbed by the graphic imagery, but found that the zombie crowd was still staring into the screen; which now was nothing but static.

After waking up, i took a few glasses of water and realised i was sweating like it was a hot-humid day, only that it wasn't.

( _")