This is wrong, and I cannot sleep without the radio on...

I had horribly unsettling dreams last night.  They’ve stuck with me today. 

The first bits are fuzzy.  It was implied I was going from place to place-maybe a couple of other women were with me-and I knew I was going to die that day.  I just didn’t know when, where, or how.  I walked into a bar with a gravel parking lot.  It was sunny.  The sky was blue.  And as I walked in I wondered to myself if this would be the place.  I didn’t see the inside of the bar, I didn’t see myself leave it, but there was a feeling of relief that it didn’t happen there.

Then I was in a dark living room, sitting in a chair, an old lady in the floor at my legs with her hands on my knees, looking up at me.  Her hair is thin; she’s wearing a standard old lady night gown.  I can see her face clearly even now, it’s no one I’ve seen before in waking life.  But in my head it’s Glenn Close.  I see red age spots on her forehead and hairline, and I know that something is wrong.  It’s her.  She’s the one who’s going to kill me.  I try to make eye contact with my wife—to let her know with a look that this woman is there to murder me, but I’m not sure she gets it.  I think that I need to call my mother.  I want to call her and tell her I love her, admit some things, but I don’t want to tell her I’m about to die.  I run through the conversation in my mind and I know she will be angry if I say all those things for no reason.

Then the old lady takes a q-tip out of her ear.  There is blood on the end –and now I know for sure I am about to die.

And then I woke up.  With a full bladder, and a throbbing that somehow sexualized my fear. I normally don’t let myself freak out over dreams, I analyze them and file them away.  But this feeling stayed with me.  On my trip to the bathroom, and the way back to my bed.  That little kid fear that something was waiting in the dark for me.

When I went back to sleep I was suddenly at a table full of people I didn’t know except for a man I’ve met once in waking life.  He is ordinary and of no interest, but there he was in my dream, sharing my table in a place that was dark and full and busy—but corny—like  a late night bowling alley.  He was talking about Thrice and Circa Survive.  I was surprised he knew these bands.  I tried to tell him I saw Circa Survive only days after I met him, but the room was loud and I felt myself straining to be heard.  He was still talking as he got up from the table.  I was still sitting.

And then I woke up.  To an alarm clock.  With the thought that I should call my mother.  I didn’t.  I’m not going to. Not today.