The Man Who Swallows Nightmares

dyspnea | 08

Darlene

I LEFT THE NOTEBOOK UNTOUCHED after I flung it across the room. The pages slapped like a flapjack against my apartment's wall. The wooden mauve brown decor with white letters that read, "As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God" fell. The corner crashed on the corridor's hardwood floor at the same time the notebook slid down. The book's spine was half opened to a blank canvas with empty space between the lines. Its crinkled edges kept the notebook staying up as if the book was doing a handstand. Gravity pushed the pages in an angle it didn't like.

There the trick remained.

I had never seen that portrait. My portrait. There was none in my writings. None that I could recall in dreams and creating. How was it there? How did the painting capture my writing space with my worn desk with a missing screw on its leg or the mechanical pencil that lost its top eraser?

Somehow my fluffy blanket was wrapped around my shoulders and covered my head. I brought the manmade cocoon near my mouth and underneath my chin. My saliva coated the material with one drop.

This was an illusion.

It's not supposed to be here, I told him.

It is! Your portrait has been - you are supposed to be here, his unwavering reply was quick and resolute.

He wasn't here. He wasn't real. Only in my mind. Yes, that was the truth.

His voice was gone. And yet, it lingered.

I breathed through my nostrils and then out my mouth. The warmth hit against the blanket. My fingers touched the cotton fabric. Closing my eyes, I focused on my thighs, legs, and arms. I was here. I was back in my apartment. Clinging once more to the fabric's stitchings, I opened my eyes. The notebook confounded me.

There was no way I fell into the story like Alice tripping and spiraling down the rabbit hole. But I saw Malachi's room. I was there. The fire place's ashwood and pine filled my lungs as if I was around my parents' campfire. The soot covered the tiny creases on my fingerprints. He spoke to me. Differently than when I wrote his thoughts, perspective, and dialogue, this immerse experience. My butt slammed on the hard floor in his bedroom. It was cold.

I checked to make sure the soreness was there. Ouch! I winced. My breath quickened. No. No. It couldn't be. Turning over my hands, my fingerprints were naked.

Perhaps the tiredness in my eyes transported me to sleep and dream of Malachi's world. It wouldn't be the first, nor would it be the last. Yes. And tiredness from work, yes. I sat on the edge of my desk chair in the office. That could be why I was sore. My pencil was on the living room carpet.

There were keys jiggling on the other side of my front door. Lucy walked in. She hung her keys on the holder. "It's good to be home." Her smile radiated. "Why are you sitting in the dark?" She stepped towards me into the living room as I stared at the monstrous deception. Lucy kicked it by accident. The edges bent but stayed in its position. She glanced at the two pieces. Her speech continued, but I couldn't focus on her words as her movements were quick and concealed the sound.

She gazed up to where our home decor was supposed to be at. A groan escaped her lips when she retrieved the wooden sign, she repositioned the Psalm 42:1 promise on the wall. Lucy took one additional step. Her gray yoga sling sandal poked the notebook's cover, the bluebells and roses shimmered a pastel color instead of its tan mauve. No. Those colors weren't correct.