Daydream | Morpheus

the hope you have given me

| Before |

I'm in a pitch black room, standing before closed doors.

My hand is not on the handle; it is as far from it as it can be, formed in a fist, unmoving next to my right hip.

I do not know what hides behind those doors. It is unknown, a secret that I do not wish to find out. I do know it's something; the existence of the doors warrants that much, but I am not aware of the nature of whatever they hide.

Is it a room? A place? An event? A memory of the past? A creature of sorts?

My mind guesses, despite the fact that I try to drift my thoughts away from the doors. Those are not pleasant thoughts to me: the wondering about the unknown. If I could, I'd walk away and leave the doors far away behind me, but my feet are glued.

No. No, that is not a good description.

I could walk, theoretically. I can take a step back, a few. I can go wherever I'd like, but I know that I cannot run from the choice that is presented to me.

Turn the handle. Or don't.

Look inside. Or don't.

Open the doors. Or do not.

I call it fear, whatever it is that keeps me picking the second option, over and over again. Constantly.

In order to understand, I will need you to imagine it.

Picture yourself as me. You're standing behind the doors, your hand on the handle. You can turn it anytime. Behind them, there is... let's call it a thing.

What is it? You don't know. But the truth is, you do not need to know, not precisely. There is only one question you should ask: is it a good thing or is it a bad one?

Obviously, you would open the doors if it was good. If it was bad, you'd rather keep them closed.

Now, I need you to understand something I've tried to explain once before. I'm a nightmare. I do not have dreams. Dreams are warranted by a desire, and desire is warranted by the knowledge of something better.

How could I ever dream of something I've never seen?

I have not seen much good during my long existence, and so I do not dream. To me, the only things that have a right to exist behind those doors are bad ones. And so, I keep them closed.

But there is a problem with that. This option doesn't end the problem I'm put before. The choice I pick is a constant: the clutching of my fist, the stillness of my posture is what I have to chose over and over again.

I do not open the doors, but I'm forced to forever stand before them, keeping my hand away, worrying that one day they might open on their own.

At this point, I need you to know one thing else.

The doors I speak of are not physical, not in a way I've described them. Sometimes, they appear in my nightmares. But even then, it is merely a flimsy imaginary of mine, a representation of something that is real but intangible, metaphysical, not seeable.