A WHALE ATE ME AND I SAW A MAN IN THE DARK AND HE TOLD ME TO SLEEP FOR IT WAS A GOOD DREAM
in a dream i saw at 5 A.M. I was swallowed by a whale.
I know it was a whale for the fact that when I opened my eyes a fire was already started and a kettle was boiling.
there was water sloshing underneath my feet.
somebody must have died there recently. their screams echoed like a call for prayer.
I smelled salt spray and a haunting feeling tightened my chest.
I was swallowed by a whale...but i wasn't sure.
I couldn't stand upright.
that was for sure.
I didn't have a map.
I could reach the ceiling and touch it, feeling something watery in my fingers.
I had goosebumps all over.
(the roof felt like eyes clenched shut.)
I smiled knowing I would get through this bad dream.
Why was it a bad dream?
I don't know.
It was a dream I didn't want to wake up from.
but it was a nightmare.
so i had to wake up, sweating and something ringing in my ears.
The house I woke up in had a weird feeling in the air.
it was crumbling down.
I couldn't stand upright, so I went with it to the ground.
i knew it was 5 AM because my longing ends at this hour all the time.
and the smoke from the flames burnt my lungs.
Who started the fire?
Who wanted tea at this hour, for a kettle was sitting on the stove?
What was I thinking when I nearly burnt our house down at 5 in the break of dawn?
It looks like I was swallowed by a giant dream I wish to see once more.
but now i am at the hospital in the town, lying on bed 13.
a nurse tending to my injury.
i tell her, 'I love fishes and whales and the colour orange.'
'orange like fire?' she asks, not surprised.
I nod in confusion. 'orange like a house going up in flames.'
How did she learn about the fire when nobody was there to watch it?
She wraps me in bandage and advises I shouldn't talk too much.
I ask why.
She says a mouth like mine could bring the stars burning to their feet.
her humour brings laughter bubbling, but my chest is swathed in gauze, too.
I am in pain and not in pain and in pain and everything sounds poetic.
I can't laugh without cracking open my skin.
The third day in the hospital, one night, my sleep thins and is worn out.
in the dark i hear screaming and salt spray wafts in through the window next to my bed.
the ceiling crouches low.
I can't stand straight.
Yet I climb off the white bed and burn a candle for I can't see in the void expanding around me.
My vision is swimming in medication.
Down the corridor I see a grandfather, a great-grandmother and a few others I won't ever recognise.
a giant-something eats me whole and in its belly i settle and here i am dreaming again.
but this time the tea is already brewed and is sitting in an
Alice-in-Wonderland styled mug.
I see a shadowed fiure in a hoodie and he smiles a smile that stretches wide till the corners reach the walls on each side.
I gasp. 'We have met?'
The shadowed figure puts a finger to his mouth and signals me to be quiet.
He says we're floating across a wide open sea at 5 A.M.
and that I will have to wake up soon.
so he takes me gently into his lap and sings me a whale song.
I know it's a whale song for the fact that when I begin to close my eyes the last image I see is a face hovering above me, grinning.
and his grin is an ocean I will drown in happily.
He says, 'Don't wake up. Don't wake up. It's a good dream.'
Why is it a good dream?
How is it a good dream?
On the 4th day at the hospital, the nurse is sickly worried and informs me that they nearly lost me.
I ask her for a shadowed figure.
I describe him as family.
and that he was visiting me the other night.
I let on the nurse that I had seen the shadowed man last night.
and she, with disbelief choking her mouth and eyes, reveals this: 'you were asleep for eleven nights and ten days.'
Because the gauze is removed, I laugh so much until the nurse plunges my head in the water using some blue and white pills.
On the 20th day at the awful hospital, I was told I could go home.
I ask where my home is.
The doctor and the nurse give me an address with directions to the place I was born and had almost died in.
I read the information and resist the urge to laugh.
I throw it away 'cause that is not my home. I don't belong anywhere.
I make a beeline for the sea and sit on the sands.
The waves come and go, kiss and part lovingly.
and in the distance I swear I see the shadowed man.
he bids me farewell.
he says something and, because he's far away from my embrace, the ocean wind carries his words to me.
He has said, 'Live, live beyond these dreams — good, scary, and from those that take away your breath.'
I am unhappy.
he wants me to live.
i want to live.
but it's not as easy as it looks.
I whisper, 'I love fishes and whales and the colour orange, like the dress i wore when i was four years old.'
he is gone.
I repeat my statement again.
He is gone.
I do it again and again and again until my throat runs dry and my voice tires itself out.
I let him go.
I allow the nightmare to disappear.
The sea is full.
my aches are slowly healing.
I can stay alive without being chained to the earth that didn't want me some time ago.
at 5 A.M. I will return home.
For now, I will attempt to draw a whale in the sand and push the water away from erasing it.
𓆉︎
people of the universe, hello. this is what i call as impulsive writing. enjoy.
