Living in the dream state

dreaming

I sat up with a start. I could feel the cool night air against my hot, sweaty neck, chest and flushed face. My sleep clothes and blanket twisted around me, tying me to the bed.

The dream – the nightmare – seemed so real. If I went back to sleep, the horrid dream would follow me.

So, I quietly lifted myself off the mattress in the half-darkness of the night light. I felt my way along the hall way, hand on banister. Turning at the end of the hall, I could see the faint light spilling out from the kitchen and into the hallway.

I took each step carefully as several squeaked and squealed. At the bottom, I could let go of the wall and follow my familiar way, heading towards kitchen and away from dreams.

The kitchen was bathed in the light of a full moon and the small led lights over the sink and stove. I found my favorite glass. I didn’t bother with the ice (too noisy), so I just filled the glass with water from the compartment on the front of the stainless steel fridge.

I needed to clear my head, to stop those dream images from playing on the screen of my mind.

I leaned my elbows on the kitchen island; the dreams had seemed so real: the pain; the tiny house; the prescription drugs; trying to rebuild shattered life; wasted time/years; poverty; remorse, fear; and dread.

Gently putting my glass in the sink, I left the reassuring glow of the kitchen and started up the blackness of the stairs. At the top, looking down the narrow hallway to the bedroom with the door almost shut, I grabbed at the banister. My legs were going out from under me, and . . .

I woke disorientated with a fluttering heart. The small rooms; the piles of paper; the meds; the failures; the insanity surrounded me – I lived in the nightmare; my dream self had a whole different life. I was her nightmare, and she was my ideal.

Pain wins again: no Day 6; so here’s Day 7

I hate to let it, but pain wins again. I tried for days to write a letter to my pain; nothing I wrote seemed to capture the relationship between us. Perhaps it’s because we’ve been together so long we communicate without exact/actual words. Or what I want to say can’t be contained in a reasonable length post. (three part harmony is an excessively long blog entry).

So, for now, I’ll leave the letter unwritten and plunge into Day 7: the sensational headline.

Cure for Pain Found on Mars?

NASA reported during a press conference today that the Mars rover, Spirit, had been having some sort technical difficulties, including needing more time to recharge batteries and “getting up and dressed for work.” The rover appeared to not be feeling “well,” moving slowly, equipment “grimacing” when going over especially rough terrain. With great difficulty, Spirit was nudged into place for the next sampling of material on the surface of Mars.

When the painfully slow retractable arm, came in contact with one of several scattered, oddly shaped rocks, output tripled, Spirit moved with no slowness or difficulties. It seemed that the rover was almost smiling as samples were gathered and analyzed. It could have been space static, but it sounded like the rover was singing, American Idol style.

Worried that there was a problem with Spirit, an expert on rover/robot behavior, Dr. R. Obot, was consulted. Going over the images, equipment output statistics and other data, Dr. Obot determined that Spirit had been experiencing the robot version of excruciating, chronic pain prior to contact with the rocks. “Pain isn’t well understood in the mechanical/technological sense. This is a whole new area of exploration that may prove to be fruitful for those suffering from pain back on earth,” Dr. Obot commented at a recent press conference concerning the activities of Spirit and Opportunity. “Spirit’s ability to do Michael Jackson’s moon walk has been greatly enhanced through contact with these rocks, perhaps due to their seeming ability to take away pain” he concluded.

“NASA has been planning to send people to Mars. This discovery is just one of many that we would like to examine back on Earth,” added the press secretary, Mr. I.G. Otnews. “The reaction of the rover, in pain, to these peculiarly shaped and colored rocks could prove to hold the cure for pain back here on Earth.” Laughing, Mr. Otnews rubbed his back and quipped that NASA better speed up plans to send people to Mars, “My back is killing me,” he said.