| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** Megan Volpert is a performance poet from Chicago currently tempting fate at grad school in Baton Rouge. She prefers making art in response to art, and wouldn't know a scholarly academic journal article if it jumped up and bit her. You can find her main poetry project on her website, www.madelynhatter.com. |
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| © 2005 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
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| Slept With One Eye Open |
| by Megan Volpert |
| The dream is silent?it reveals much but speaks not at all. Secondarily, the dream contains much absence?it lacks a great deal but when the nothingness makes itself known, it seems as full to you as if it were somethingness. Both of these issues cause you great anxiety; nevertheless you cannot flee. Reality is easily eluded, but how does one escape one?s dreams?
You are not quite yourself, but you are certainly the main character. Landed without motivation of any kind?and yet some sense of purpose?in a town of no name and no place. They are short and shallow, the buildings, and all variations of brown. It could be the ugliest or most commonplace western film set you have ever seen. The main road is unpaved and your footsteps leave no prints in the dust, even though there is no wind. No wind, and an overwhelmingly thick silence?a pressure against your body enough like being under water that you have trouble breathing. You cannot even hear your own gasp, though you are sure it is there. You are not quite yourself because you can see yourself. The main character and the camera person are apparently the same, and the feeling of being outside yourself is so clear that you begin to wonder if you are also the director. The view of yourself is from high above the buildings?the whole town is laid bare left to right, and you see yourself standing at the edge of the main road. There is an attempt at directing yourself, but the situation seems beyond your control. The brightest thing in the universe, small as it is, is the cheerleading outfit?blue and yellow?you have on. Never in your life have you worn such an outfit; in fact, it is tempting to say that you despise the creatures that do. Your hands are empty, and you cannot put on new clothes. And there is only the main street, so you cannot move in but one direction. Whatever your purpose, it moves you forward. You look for something, knowing not what it is until you find it. One instant you are walking down the main street. The next instant the scene cuts to the outside of one particular brown building. You do not know how far along the street you are, but there you are?your destination, though not your goal. You stand under a wooden sign that hangs over a wooden door. The sign has nothing written on it, but you are given to understand that you are supposed to procure a room in this building. It is a boarding house of some kind. You raise your fist to knock on the door, but the door swings open silently before you have a chance to. There stands the old woman. You have not seen her before, yet you know her features. She is blind. The useless blue eyes aim dumbly in your direction, and her blotchy, diseased mouth contorts into a grin as though she is glad to smell you. She is ugly and devious on the outside?perhaps also on the inside. Cut to an over your own shoulder view of the woman hunching down the dingy, narrow hallway and unlocking the wooden door of your lodgings. You enter the room with no window; it contains only a bed with a threadbare, moth-eaten quilt. The emptiness of the room?no closet, no chest of drawers?seems unusual, but you are not worried by it as you have no bags to unpack in the first place. Somehow time passes in the room with no window, and from where you sit on the bed you are startled when you suddenly notice the woman in the doorway. You do not know how long she has been watching you, or what you have been doing while she was watching. Her presence indicates your evening meal is ready, though she gestures little and speaks not at all. You do not remember what the meal consisted of, except that the woman did not eat with you. But she was watching. Too aged. Too infirm. Too obvious. Cut to your retiring for the evening; as the camera person you notice the key is no longer in the lock. The main character does not notice or does not react. Sleep. Somehow time passes in the room with no window, and from where you lay in the bed you are startled when you notice the woman in the doorway. A mere flash of such an image before you are consumed by darkness again. Sleep. In the morning you awaken with the sense that the image in the night was a dream. Only a dream?terrifying and harmless. The day passes you know not how or where. You have done work today but you do not know what kind or whether you have even left the boarding house. The woman in the doorway again. You do not know how long she has been watching you, or what you have been doing while she was watching. Evening meal. Time passes somehow. Eerie again. Sleep. Time passes somehow. The flash is not the woman in the doorway this time. There is an ache in the bones of your hand, moving its way to your wrist. A deep ache. It draws you out of sleep. You feel finally as if your hand is on fire. You are compelled to open your eyes and what is there at your hand is the woman. In the vague light from the crack in the door is the outline of the woman crouched by your bedside. Her mouth engulfs half your hand. You cannot move your fingers. You feel her yellow, uneven teeth grating against the palm of your hand. You cannot move your legs?the thin quilt weighs down on you and you are paralyzed. You can see nothing clearly but her dead eyes in ecstasy and her mouth merged with the thin flesh of the backside of your hand. She catches the scent of your reaction and your sudden failed attempt at movement, and withdraws instantly. You are screaming as she goes. There is no sound, but you are certain you are screaming. You do not know why you cannot leave the bed. You cry silently and time passes somehow. Sleep. In the morning you awaken with the sense that the image in the night was real. There is nothing wrong with your hand. Everything is as it was before time passed. You work again today and eat again today. Gradually this routine?you have no access to what it might be, but you feel it as a routine?calms you so that when the scene cuts quickly to you retiring again for the evening, there is no trace of fear left upon your features even to the trained eye of the camera person who knows you so well. Your calm is authentic. Sleep. There is an ache in the bones of your hand, moving its way to your wrist. A deep ache. It draws you out of sleep. You feel finally as if your hand is on fire. You are compelled to open your eyes and what is there at your hand is the woman. In the vague light from the crack in the door is the outline of the woman crouched by your bedside. Her mouth engulfs half your hand. You cannot move your fingers. You feel her yellow, uneven teeth grating against the palm of your hand. You cannot move your legs?the thin quilt weighs down on you and you are paralyzed. You can see nothing clearly but her dead eyes in ecstasy and her mouth merged with the thin flesh of the backside of your hand. She catches the scent of your reaction and your sudden failed attempt at movement, and withdraws instantly. You are screaming as she goes. There is no sound, but you are certain you are screaming. You do not know why you cannot leave the bed. You cry silently and time passes somehow. Sleep. In the morning you awaken certain that the image in the night is real. There is nothing wrong with your hand. You are surprised you have slept at all. The main character is increasingly distraught and cannot be calmed again; the camera person wishes to leave the scene. Neither are able to leave the scene?the director is nowhere to be found. Inexplicably, work and meals occur. Time passes somehow. The main character and the camera person are shocked when the scene cuts immediately to you retiring for the evening. You desire to leave the boarding house but you cannot. Sleep. Time passes somehow. There is an ache in the bones of your hand, moving its way to your wrist. A deep ache. It draws you out of sleep. You feel finally as if your hand is on fire. You are compelled to open your eyes and what is there at your hand is the woman. In the vague light from the crack in the door is the outline of the woman crouched by your bedside. Her mouth engulfs half your hand. You cannot move your fingers. You feel her yellow, uneven teeth grating against the palm of your hand. You cannot move your legs?the thin quilt weighs down on you and you are paralyzed. You can see nothing clearly but her dead eyes in ecstasy and her mouth merged with the thin flesh of the backside of your hand. She catches the scent of your reaction and your sudden failed attempt at movement, and withdraws instantly. You are screaming as she goes. There is no sound, but you are certain you are screaming. You do not know why you cannot leave the bed. You cry silently and time passes somehow. Sleep. In the morning you awaken certain that the image in the night is real. There is nothing wrong with your hand. You are surprised you have slept at all. You desire to leave the boarding house. You despair as the scene cuts immediately to you retiring for the evening knowing work and meals have occurred. Sleep. Time passes somehow. There is an ache in the bones of your hand, moving its way to your wrist. A deep ache. It draws you out of sleep. You feel finally as if your hand is on fire. You are compelled to open your eyes though you are certain you had slept with one eye open and what is there at your hand is the woman. The yellow, uneven teeth grate against the bones of your wrist as what is left of the nerves in your fingers touch the slick, spongy walls of her throat. Her saliva burns your split knuckles and you are not paralyzed. As you withdraw your arm in panic from her mouth your jagged fingernails are caught briefly on the roof of her mouth. When both skins tear you feel it so deeply in your bones you think it may have made a noise. Kicking the woman in the chest as you scramble out from under the quilt, you scream. There is no sound, but you are certain you are screaming. The shallow western town is gone. Cut to the top of a tall, neatly erected house. The night sky. You are nowhere that you know, but you have now both motivation and purpose. You are moving quickly. The tops of houses, of other somewhat taller buildings. The brightest thing in the universe?blue and yellow?you know what it is; do not look down at it. The moon and stars light your way forward and sidewise. Do not look down. Do not look behind you. There is no sound, but you are certain the woman is there. She is chasing. Hunting what parts of your arm may or may not be left. You feel as if your arm is on fire. Do not look down. You jump from the top of one building to another. It reminds you of a video game. When your foot touches the roof you return immediately to the air. She may be right behind you. She may already be long gone. Do not look behind you. You are moving quickly. The tops of houses, of other somewhat taller buildings. Time passes. The camera person has lost you in your swift flight. You can no longer see yourself. You feel if only you can land on top of one of the buildings with enough force, there would be noise in it. You feel the camera person could find you again. This is not the decision of the director you feel. You jump from the top of one building to another. Time passes as the night sky becomes the dawn. The sound of the sun rising you hear. Sleep. I think in some way I wanted it to end, even if it meant my own destruction. -Jeffrey Dahmer |
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| July 2005 |
| 44 |
| I was completely swept along with my own compulsion.
-Jeffrey Dahmer |