Aban's Accension

Chapter 1: The Dream

Chapter 1: THE DREAM

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

A black sink. That’s her first thought. A black sink. She squints down. The blackness is moving softly, its edges ... there are no edges. A ping of fear rises in her, then settles softly back into simple observation. The empty deep swirls beneath her. She is hanging over and in it, its inky fluidic space sucking out the light from around her, vacuuming away all hope. Motion catches her eye to the left and behind her. She moves her eyeballs left and sees two creamy, ribbed things undulating towards her, slowly. Their blurred triangular shapes swim in a straight line. A second couple hoves into view: two by two they come. Maggots. She flickers her feet, trying to rise, to get out of their way, but she's stuck, gripped by an unknown force and the niggling thought of, does she really want to move? Aren't they fascinating, these effervescent couples with their soft bodies and hypnotic movement. She stops struggling.

The line is long now stretching into the unseen distance, growing like a magic scarf flying out of a magician’s pocket. She’s not sure if the line of pairs is above her or in front of her. Her eyes watch them while her mind disengages. It is so easy to disengage, to see them as having nothing to do with her. They're just maggots swimming by. The void beneath her feet does not exist.

They turn.

The front of the line has now gone way past her on her right, and so when they turn, they are on her front and right flanks. She doesn't like that. Her mind re-engages. She can no longer pretend that they have nothing to do with her. She wriggles; she flaps her feet; she stretches her neck, arches her head back. But it’s hard to resist this formless place. Fear rises in her throat.

She wakes up.

And finds herself struggling with her damp sheets, the bottom one all wrinkled, the top one holding her down, pinning her arms to her sides. Panic grips her until she wakes up enough to relax and release herself from the tight top sheet.

Her chest rises and drops heavily, up and down, up and down. Gradually, her hearing returns, her sight broadens. She hears: the cicadas singing outside in the sultry air. She feels: the air inside her bedroom sitting on her like a wet fleece with no breeze blowing in through the open window to bring relief.

She jumps out of bed to fill her mind with the busy-ness of brushing teeth and putting on her multi-pocketed, baggy army pants and favourite T-shirt proclaiming “The Secret is My Birthright.”