Frankenplot: Dreams of Witches

Frankenplot: Dreams of Witches

It’s the last of the benzo. I’ve really gotta get off this stuff. I’ll quit after this one. I promise.

There’s that wan smile from my partner again. My wife. She’s heard it all before.

Drifting….

…..drifting….

….asleep.

Time passes in a soundless void. I know I’m active and yet oblivious. There’s something cold and hard. Sharp.  I secrete it on my person.

The pile outside gets higher each day; a concoction of branches dried by sunlight, tendrils of thorny plants, moribund twigs and decomposing leaves. The garden looks better for cutting back but the consequence is this impromptu mound of mulch. There are times it seems to form shapes; a Rorschach inkblot test.

I see the outlines of people in it.

Dead people.

Always dead people.

Night descends like a funereal shroud. Moonbeams illuminate the scene, spotlights casting around a stage. I find myself staring absently through a conservatory pane, a nocturnal voyeur forming an ominous silhouette to anyone looking in.

For a moment my eyes are closed.

On opening again, I find myself standing on the lawn bare-footed, dew seeping between my toes. The wet slicks my feet, cold and clammy on the underside.

(I don’t know how I got here).

Lightning cracks the sky, splintering like broken glass. I count the beats in my head before thunder arrives.

One…two…three…four…five seconds. I think.

The air reeks of ozone now.

Rain falls. Tiny drops to start, quickly becoming a crescendo of teeming water. The ground resonates with its incessant patter.

The oh-so-tall sycamore to the left of the jumbled arboreal heap is in shadow, branches scratching at the gloom as though frozen talons of a bird-of-prey. Another flash of pearlescent white and the old tree is all lit up. There’s something dangling from an outstretched branch. It’s a body. Hanging. Hanged. Hung.

The vision is fleeting before everywhere is enveloped in darkness once more as drifting clouds obscure the moon. I slowly turn and move back towards the house. My memory is twitching, like the twitching legs of a victim of hanging. It’s trying to tell me something. To remind me.

The Witch Trials of Bleadon Hill.

Remember?

I tread gingerly, unsure of my footing. Mossy stone steps lead up to the back of the house and sanctuary. There’s a nagging sensation that someone is directly behind me. Following me. I sense breath on the nape of my neck. Hot rancid breath. I should turn around and confront but I’m too scared.

I persevere with the return home desperately trying not to give in to panic. I want to run. My heart jack hammers. There’s a conflict between feeling taut and tense all over (fight) and fleeing by breaking into a sprint (flight).

Must keep things under control.

I look up expecting to see something in the sky flying on a broomstick, an ethereal image that’s not concurrent with reality. Like something from a movie.

The journey back drags, seems to take an eternity. All the while I am wrought with tension, my breathing laboured. Whatever it is that’s here with me is silently torturing in its pursuit.

There’s relief as I manage to open a door and slip over the threshold into the conservatory. My right hand drags as I pull the opening closed again. It’s only now I allow myself to cautiously spin and glance to my rear. There is an all-encompassing veil of ebony with blue-bruised skies overhead. A bird glides across the vista bringing something like normality back through its flight.

I vaguely recall that somebody is staying with me. Helping me. I wrack my brain trying to think who it is. As my head tries to unravel the mystery, I see movement inside the house. It’s shuffling towards me, past the table made of Jali in the dining room. The table revered by my better half.

Closer still. I can’t make out what it is. Who it is.

I feel cold metal in my pocket. Fear rises once more but also another feeling. Slight confusion. I’m aware I somnambulate. This might not be real. I’m unsure.

This is a dream. Please be a dream.

Is that what this is?

The silent figure is nearly upon me. Calling me.

I fumble for and grip a concealed kitchen knife. I don’t remember collecting it. But I must have.

My mind is screaming that, somehow, the thing from the garden has followed me and is now in my home. That can’t be. Can it?

I relent, panic and plunge the latent weapon into the intruder’s chest.

A look of horror. Eyes wide.

The world stops.

Shock.

A body slumps into my arms.

Warm claret oozing over my fingers.

An empty pill packet falls from the table and onto the floor.

I think I’m awake now.

I’m staring down.

With an all-consuming recognition.

Her wan smile no more.

 

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