The Dream Detritus

An Infernal Realisation

I woke up way too early in the morning. It was 5. My head was aching all over and I did not have a great sleep. All because of a dream I had, a dream that engulfed reality. A dream, that threatened to encapsulate me within a never-ending self-doubt.

The previous day, I was reading the Inferno by Dan Brown. The novel was in all cases, a good read. It actually made me believe that something was actually occurring, in our afterlives. Botticelli's 'la mappa dell inferno' was an image I googled for, with some far-reaching results in my psyche. Needless to say, it caused the nightmare. The three headed Satan was an image I could never get out of my mind, even if i try to. Such simple paintings causing a real fear in my gut ? It wasn't a simple painting. It had some dark history to it.

When I was reading Brown's Inferno, i made a mental note as to check out how the painting described in the book, would be, in picture. A mistake, which I never realised then. After completing the highly informative book, I switched on my laptop and LAN and googled Botticelli's painting. I got several results, showing a nine ringed spiral, descending into oblivion. I thought, 'Well, this seems interesting', and did further browsing on Botticelli's works. His illustrations of the Inferno of Dante were splendid. the depiction of Satan especially, struck me as a masterpiece. In order to check out the picture closely, I zoomed it. It was already seeming ominous. I began to think of horrifying prospects of languishing in hell in my afterlife. After all, every person has to go through a purgatory, in metaphorical sense, be it whatever religion or god he worships.

All that happened was my touching the LCD screen of my laptop to remove a speck of dust on the screen, which by sheer coincidence, was at the centre of Satan's forehead. My fingernails suddenly charred. I didnot know what to make of that phenomenon. I was too scared. Man ! The image of the satan warped itself into a Chimera, a mythical monster. It was all happening there, within the screen till then. I just fizzled out temporarily, not knowing what to make out of my charred nails and the warping image. When I stirred up, I was no longer sitting on my chair, in my home, next to my laptop.

I was standing in the apex of a steep cliff. This, was completely mad.

 It seemed totally other-worldly, the azure sky, the indiscernible horizon, the perfectly brown cliff. A little too perfect scenery, till a wormhole appeared right at the middle of the azure sky. A black, scaly leg tore the wormhole apart, entering the scene. A totally amorphous mass rose right at the opposite point of the wormhole, from within the sea. Before it happened, I sort of knew that it should not happen, for the good of the world, and more importantly, myself. A little self-importance creeped in, as I checked out my fingernails. They weren't there. 

Instead, my hands, both of them were replaced by a robotic- prosthetic linkage that would have seemed in sync with terminator movies. They were gleaming red. It took me a moment to discover that they were shackles and the gleaming red was my oozing blood. I could only move them, for their fuctionality was compromised with metallic strength. I was feeling nauseatic by the time I finished examining the fetters. I barely noticed the brewing disaster just at a stone's throw. The scaly leg that ripped the sky was now a full-fledged monster, totally similar to that of Botticelli's painting. Three headed - check. Long, bifid tongues- check. Scaly arms and legs akin to a reptile - check. Poison - check. Skin as impenetrable as dragon hide - check. A long spiky tail with a poison sting- check. What I was looking at was Armageddon personified. A representation of the world's most diabolical beings combined. If it weren't for the overpowering pain in my hands, I'd have dropped dead of my own accord or better, collapsed unconscious because of a heart attack.

It was fighting the amorphous being from the sea, for, probably control and dominance. It wouldn't be long till the being noticed me. The feeling was totally otherworldly. As much as I have seen on movies and my imaginations through reading fictional thrillers, this was a whopper. Believe me, you wouldn't have wanted to witness the carnage it was creating in the midst of a perfect scenery.

Only one thing was through my mind- RUN.! But where to ? I had an idea, a dumb one at that. I ran towards the arena of the fight. Suicide, perhaps. Adrenalin makes people work in strange ways. The creature was now spawning minions, wow ! Wherever they put their foot, the sea blistered, and vaporised, till water was no more. They must've been giving out too much heat. Land began to show up at the places where the minions set foot. Easily, the sea creature was losing. It was way too gentle to win against the hellish fiend. It was Inferno upon the earth. This was the termination process beginning. 

I thought, perhaps, the fiend minions gave land for me to hop on, to escape to the other side, and survive cataclysm, temporarily. Survival Instinct sent me right into the little patches of lands, to temporary haven.

But, to reach the patches, I'd have to survive a 550 metre fall. I did the natural thing, I jumped, thinking that I could balance myself on the new prosthetic likages once I fell on the ground. the next thing, I woke with a start. I suffered a hypnic jerk. The feeling you get, when you feel like falling, skipping a stair, having the rug pulled out of your legs. The feeling is common for people of all ages. And, it occurs generally during REM sleep. When I turned to my left, I checked the clock. It was 5. I checked my mobile phone. I had received a mail. It read :

Hey Human, 

Glad Tidings. You are the first person we tested with our radio-virtual reality. Your mobile deserves all our thanks for making it perfectly possible. Our high- lord commanded that an awareness-campaign was in order for the humans. They are a primitively violent race that show the higest hostility index in the shortest time. It is absolutely necessary that they be informed the ills of a high hostility index. We devised a radio - virtual reality programme which would warn them of the future  destruction that they could cause. the software caters to the imagination of every person's mind. We have codenamed it - The Detritus. It makes use of the leftover imaginative capacity in our subconscious - similar to the detritus in an ecosystem. It is fully operational when your brain is the most actively functional, which varies from person to person.

As far as our survey and research suggested, you had a particularly high detrital imaginatory content in your brain, which made us to earmark you as the first person undergoing the process. The main message to be conveyed was the attraction that humans have for vices - the temporary havens, and the destruction of the earth - as the sea creature - the primordial aquatic life, from which all beings sprang forth. The little patches of land conveyed that the destruction of the environment, as in uprooting vegetation and their demoliton, cause way for the aggravation of the vices. And, eventually, the fiend called the Devil, encapsulates all in existence, leaving only vices and destruction of the fabric of our life, the intertwined and interdependent lives across the universes. 

Note : This mail is A.I. generated and doesn't need to be replied for.

Yours Sincerely,

The Übermensch, 

La gardistoj de la universo.

And after reading the mail i received, it sure did send me into an indefinite circle of self doubt and retrospection. 'Man ! ' I thought, " We really are a messed up tribe of beings. A cleansing is in order indeed ! "