Think of the worst hangover you ever had.
The migraine. The nausea. The seconds you weren't sure if you were asleep or dreaming, suspended in uncertainty of consciousness. The ache in your limbs.
That's how I felt.
It was obviously a dream. Or so I perceived. I couldn't remember anything from before. I opened my eyes to the gray, diffuse light leaking through the wide, narrow window. Like a basement window.
Was the sky overcast or was the window dirty? I couldn't tell. Either way, it rattled. Loud.
I was worried that there was a storm setting in. But the very thought of standing up made my head spin. Sleep whirled around me like a river current. But the closer I came to unconsciousness, the more that damned window rattled.
I stood up in stages.
On my knees for a few minutes. Gently rocking back and forth.
There was a skeletal folding table just under the window. I gripped the rust-corrupted frame with both hands. Leaned over the space where the canvas used to be.
And I waited for a few more minutes. Gently rocking back and forth.
By then, the window was rattling so violently that the frame was shedding splinters of white paint.
I turned the old-fashioned clasp that held the window shut. It was stiff and put up a fight.
Ghostly tendrils of sand spiralled into the opening as soon as the the window was loose. I was blinded for some time. In my fractions of sight, I saw the rows of broken teeth that were ruined buildings with their glassless windows and exposed steel girders.
Skyscrapers. Corner shops. Gas stations. They were all dead and wrapped up in a maelstrom of sand.
Gray is such a peculiar color.
It's a color between colors.
This was the first time I saw gray in everything.
And yet I couldn't see much.
The sky was marbled with it.
The buildings were soaked in it.
I needed to throw up, so I stopped thinking and latched the window shut.
I lay back down where I started. A threadbare mattress with odd stains.
I lay on my side, digging for memories of something, anything, before this.
But THIS was all there was.
Gray.
Gray sand.
Gray skies.
Gray dirt.
Gray playgrounds of rusted swingsets,
with now
Gray buildings.
Gray everything.
I rolled over on my side and fell asleep.
Or something like it.
YOU ARE READING
Grayspace
PoetryThis project is the author's exercise of methods using automatism as either the finished product or the basis for stories and poems. Nonsense, jarring images, and peculiar journeys woven from the stuff of dreams await. You might laugh. You might cr...
