Entry Eleven
Skinned Tree (Dream I)
Blue Book,
I'm in my room again. Maxwell is
sleeping, like always. I don't think he really cares for me all that much since
he came in. We didn't even get the chance to introduce ourselves before it
seemed like he had everything all figured out. He says I say things while I'm
having my nightmares, and that makes me uneasy--mainly because he tells me this
with a cunning grin that notifies he'll use it against me. For the time being I
pretend not to care. Don't know how long I'll be able to keep that up, however.
Every passing moment I feel uneasy and paranoid as though he's going to
persecute me.
While we're off doing our own chores and
"sessions", my darling roommate and I don't talk much at all,
so what can he have against me, anyway? We're both ghosts to one another, as
though the other person is just a transparent guest. I rather prefer that
psychology anyway; it makes me feel like I've got more time and space in my
surroundings.
I keep thinking about the sleeper in the
terminally ill ward, and the images I keep seeing every time I go back and look
at him. It seems as if everything that I have lost, all my memories, flood back
each time I see him. I'm not all that surprised, really. The doc told me that
certain reminders such as that normally do bring back lost memories. That being
said, I return there to try to regain what had been taken away from me.
I go back, but no changes. All I keep
seeing are silhouettes in a fog. Nothing stays the same. Everything changes.
In my mind, I see a field. It's washed
out of color with mixtures of hues I know don't exist. I can't explain the
colors. It's just a vast field of nothingness and endlessness, stretching out
into the far beyond horizon. The only thing in sight is a tree. I see that
tree, and the closer I walk to it--no, I'm not even walking, I'm gliding
to it--the more I come to realize that...it's not a normal tree. Its bark is
not made of wood. There are organs sticking out of the crevices here and there:
Arms, feet, fingers, pieces of hair, intestines, loose skin.... I've never seen
anything quite like it before. The leaves themselves are like wisps of dead
locks floating in the breeze. I go to touch it only to realize that my entire
being is translucent and nonexistent. I feel like I'm dead. Perhaps I am. The
tree isn't moving; it poses no threat to me. I ignore the fact that it's
calling out my name, I ignore the fact that it even knows my name at all (hell,
this is just a dream, right?); I even ignore the concept that the very
existence of this tree is completely improbably and makes no sense whatsoever.
There's something very...gentle about this tree, maybe even a little spiritual.
There are people inside, crying out. Each little ghost within: Children of
death and destruction and pain and agony and disease and sickness and misery
and suffering and regret and hatred. Above all, there is so much hatred.
From that crevice, there reaches out a
hand. It takes me, wrenching me from my secure, bodiless guise and with a great
force I have never experienced neither ever wanted to experience, it takes me
into its world of death and destruction and pain and agony and disease and
sickness and misery and suffering and regret and hatred. Ah, the hatred. So
much hatred. I don't know where I'm going from here, because before I could
have the chance to experience the great sensation of agonizing death, I wake up
in cold sweat.
Maxell is already awake by then. He looks
at me jadedly, rolls over, and smothers his pillow over his ears to block out
my wakefulness. I don't blame him for being annoyed. To be honest, I'm pretty
annoyed, myself.
I should go to the front office to ask
for some pain killers, because this migraine is just killing me. What I really
want to do is go back to the garden. I want to go back, though after my last
episode I know I never can go back. Not now. Not for a long while. Fuckers. It
doesn't matter how hard I try, how much I do, it's never good enough.
I'm not gonna get better. There's no cure
for the sickness that's inside of me. All there is is patience, and time, and
wait. Ah, so much wait.
Huh. Maxwell is getting up now. He says
he's going to the restroom. Why he decides to announce his departure is beyond
me.
I don't know why I'm still writing this.
Between this journal and reading, I've got nothing better to do to keep myself
awake. It's getting late and I have no reason to be up anyway.
Oh! Almost forgot.... The doc made me go
to Marcus' office earlier today. He says my brother wanted to talk to me
about something. Curious, I do that. Mind you, despite its extravagant,
interior decorating, Marcus' office has gotta be the most boring place in
the building. There's so much to look at that there's nothing to be amazed with
at all. It's petty, despicable.
Turns out the doc told my brother about
the dreams and the memories of the sleeper. Fucker wasn't really asleep after
all. Marcus then reminds me that I'm never to visit the terminally ill ward
again, and then I wonder.... Is the sleeper really sick?
Of course he's sick. I look at him, and
he appears to be dying on his deathbed. Are things what they appear to be? Of
course they do and do not.
What does it matter? I'm dead anyway. The
ghosts tell me so.
Sounds outside my room. Seems that
Maxwell's coming back. I really ought to ap