I couldn’t say what woke me first - the first blush of dawn bleeding through the open windowpane or the insidious cold seeping up from the kitchen floor below me. I was still sweating, pinned on my back in only my nightgown, and my knees were splayed open - just as he had left me. I pressed my hands into the tiles, letting the comforting iciness creep into my palms and I lay half awake, glad to back amongst the familiar geometric constraints of the kitchen and the crumbs and the dust that could never be satisfactorily swept. Here, if only for a brief moment, I was safe.

I could hear movement throughout the house: my mother had already risen, early for a Tuesday. I could hear her shuffling about as subtle as a wounded elephant and I knew she’d already been to my room to check on me.

I was still shaken, disturbed and exhausted and aching from the nocturnal visions that had tormented me constantly since my Charlie was taken so suddenly. The corporeal reassurance of the floor made me disinclined to move; it wasn’t long before I felt my mother’s presence in the doorway.

“Agatha! Get up off the floor this instant, vulgar girl!” My mother had little patience for sleepwalking or psychic disturbances of any kind. In fact, she was a woman of little patience at all: whilst her perfunctory and practical manner had been the only thing that had saved me when the news came to the village that Charlie’s boat had been lost in the harbour, she had since turned unsympathetic and cruel.

I didn’t look at her, but kept my gaze to the thin sheen of grime under the stove. “And go wash yourself! You smell ever so frightful,” she added and I could tell her thick arms were crossed in front of her wide chest. “Go on, now! Move! And you can help your father in the shop today, I’ve had enough of the sight of you, horrid creature! Lying on the floor and wandering in the darkness isn’t going to bring him back - look at little Ginny Langridge down at number 42! She lost two husbands during the war and she’s younger than you and you don’t see her moping around!”

I could still feel the ghost of his weight on my chest, holding me fast to the floor but I managed to lift myself to a sitting position. My mother slammed her heel down, the sound jolting me like a slap.

“Move . . . !”

~~~~~~

If he appeared every night then perhaps I would have semblance of stability, something reliable I could steel myself for but the dreams were never constant. Only the presence of Dr. Stanhope and his syringe gave me some warning but even in the sedative-induce haze it was not certain. To remain awake was no option: at the first signs of restlessness my mother would call the doctor and I would be unwillingly drawn into the dark world of sleep once more.

The dreams all start the same: I am pulled from my bed and my room dissolves around me in a haze of fog and the darkest of light. The only hue is a dark, dark green. I am driven forward in bare feet over moss and over mud, through reeds and swampland filled with an eerie glow and he appears, emerging through the mist on a nest of legs like tree roots and that move like spiders’. His chest is bare and his beard is long and green and his arms are strong and peppered with tiny, curling tendrils. I want to run, but still I am drawn forward.

He grabs me, carrying me off on his spindly root-legs and the tendrils from his arms spring forward and wrap around my body like rope. We cross the river and then he stops, and he lays me down in the mud. He is not gentle like my Charlie was; he whispers to me, tries to reassure me but his hands are rough and his kisses are violent. More vines coil out from his skin, inching under my nightgown, over my bare flesh, and inside . . .

~~~~~~

It had been six months since my wedding when the vomiting started. Four months since the black waters took my husband’s life and the nightmares began. It didn’t take my mother long to work out what was the matter as I hunched over the basin in the bathroom after breakfast. She stood in the hallway, not lifting a finger to help and berating me as if my plight was my own, wilful doing.

“You disgust me! How a child of mine could end up in such a state I shall never know!” I closed my eyes and tried to block out the words but for all the pain and wretchedness I felt she still broke through. “So who is it then, Agatha? Who did you let put you such a state? Was it Roger Laidley from down the road?” No, Mother, I wanted to say but the words were caught in my burning throat. “I bet you it was that young Roger Laidley. I’ve seen the way he looks at you through the window of the shop. Always had eyes for you, that one - never thought you had eyes for him! And after losing such a good a lad as you had too . . . ! You are the pit of shame in my heart, Agatha Hadfield!”

“It’s Bowman, Mother!” I cried, my dear Charlie’s name bringing forth a fresh set of tears. “Not Hadfield - Bowman!”

“I shouldn’t think you're fit to keep his name, not in the state you’re in . . .”

Whilst there was no sympathy to be had from my mother, my father only regarded me with sad eyes and a mournful silence. His discovery of a man’s shoe outside the kitchen window lead him to believe that I was attacked, that an intruder had taken advantage of my morphine-addled state but my mother would hear none of it. I was forever the guilty party in her mind, and although both were wrong I could hardly tell them the truth. And as my stomach started to swell and I became so ill as to be bed-ridden the dreams still would not let me rest.

He would come to me now, and take me from my bed in arms as strong as branches. He would sit me by the banks of the river on a fallen willow’s trunk; the port and the market and the houses would be gone, replaced with swamps and marshes and reeds. With the harmony of frogs in the background he would hold me with a grip more possessive than tender and the little tendrils would sneak from his flesh and caress my hair, my arms, my swollen belly.

“Agatha,” he would whisper and pull me tight and his naked skin against me smelt of peat and rotting leaves. “Mother of my child, how long I have waited for you . . . Through all these years I have watched your kind take from me; what you consider a triumph of engineering and development is nothing more than the rape and desecration of my body and my soul. Two-hundred-and-fifty years it has taken for you to drain me, to scar me and turn this place in a brick-and-mortar wasteland teeming with your mass and your filth. You have altered my currents, driven away the life from my estuaries and robbed me of my power but through you, my dear Agatha, I shall fight back.

“I suppose you must be asking yourself, why me?” he said and stroked my cheek as the green-tinged mist rolled thick around us; he didn’t wait for my answer, the fear and the rising nausea had left me without the power of speech. “You are not the first, but I hope you will be the last. None had ever been able to carry my seed to term but you, Agatha, your mind and your soul are ripe and there is a hidden strength deep within that you may never have known existed. Disposing of your husband was easy, even in my weakened state - of course, you call it a freak of nature, and act of God, but your God was not the one that broke the surface of the otherwise calm water that day - and in the deep depths of your sleep you are more open to me than anyone else in your wretched town. I need only call and you are mine . . .

“But do not cry, dear Agatha - the child you hold within you is destined for greatness! You will be most proud of him as he grows up and shows himself to be a fine leader of men. And he will lead them away from this place, and day by day, brick by miserable brick, it will all be returned to me . . .”

I waited for the dreams to come.

The noises of the hospital faded around me as I watch Sophie's still form. Even in the smaller beds of the children's wing she looked tiny. She was tiny. Chemotherapy doesn't encourage growth spurts.

I should be used to this pattern by now. Chemo. Low white cell count. Fever. Antibiotics. Recovery. Rinse and repeat.

But I'm not.

We were at the fever stage now. Sophie's hardest stage. At five, she has more imagination and creativity than children twice as old. Everybody who knows her loves her. But the imagination that is normally such a joy turns into a curse during her fever dreams.

One small arm twitched. A soft moan escaped her, almost lost beneath the rhythmic sounds of the monitors. The sheet moved over her foot. They'd started.

I picked up the cool washcloth and slid my chair closer to the bed. Small beads of perspiration clung to her skin like morning dew on a rose. I carefully, gently wiped them away. She twisted beneath my touch, trying to escape unknown demons.

I held her tiny hand in mine and leaned in close, kissing her softly on the cheek.

"It's okay, sweetie. Everything is going to be fine. Mommy is here."

She didn't respond.

A nurse came in to check on us.

"How are you today, Elsa?" she asked me. I watched as she busied herself around the bed, checking vitals and keeping up a steady chatter that was supposed to be soothing. I'd heard it too many times before and it plucked at my nerves like fingernails down a chalkboard. I stayed silent. She was a good nurse, gentle with Sophie. She didn't deserve to be the target of my anger.

"Mommy. Mommy, come back."

The words tore at my heart.

"I'm here, Sophie. Mommy's here. She won't leave you." I smoothed the damp hair from her forehead.

"Mommy. I love you, Mommy. "

"I love you too, Sophie. More than anything in the world."

I was vaguely aware that my husband had entered the room. I felt his hand on my shoulder.

"I love you, too. Both of you. My beautiful ladies."

His voice had a calming effect on Sophie. Her movements became less frantic. My tension eased slightly; maybe this time wouldn't be as bad.

I measured time by watching the I.V. bag. Drip. Drip. Drip. Ten seconds between drips. Six every minute. Each one delivering medicine to a body weakened by illness and its treatment. The cure that was also the curse.

Before Sophie's diagnosis, I'd seen the pictures of terminally ill kids. I'd given my annual donations to the Make a Wish Foundation and the Ronald McDonald house. And I'd had a passing thought about their parents. After all, I thought, it must be tough to have a sick kid. But at least it isn't them.

I was foolish and naïve.

I'd wished a hundred times that it was me instead of Sophie lying in that hospital bed. Me with the cancer. Me with the pain, the nausea, the vomiting. Me with the fever dreams.

"Mommy! Mommy! Where are you, Mommy? Please come back."

I felt like my heart was being torn from my body. I was the strong one, the one who could handle anything, do anything. If there was a problem at work I was the one with the solution. When my husband had lost his job, I was the one who held the family together. When my parents needed care, I was the one who stepped up and made the hard decisions.

I'd never felt so hopeless in my life.

I bathed her faced, then ran the cool cloth down her arms. She was so hot, the fever raging through her body.

"103.7. Up another degree." The nurse's voice came to me as if in a dream. My whole being was focused on Sophie. Nothing else mattered.

Chills racked her body. I sat on the bed and carefully lifted her into my arms, wrapping the blankets tightly. I quietly sang her favorite song as I rocked her back and forth.

"I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout…"

The dreams continued. Like a little girl lost in a storm, she continued to call for her mommy. I could only imagine what she was going through. Abandoned in her dreamscape, abandoned by her mommy. By the person she thought she could trust.

I gently wiped away her tears, holding her close and praying that somehow she'd know I was here, know that I'd never, ever leave her. Our tears mingled as the fever climbed.

I don't know how long we sat there. I was only vaguely aware of my surroundings, almost as if I was in a dream, too. I was occasionally aware of my husband comforting us and offering support. I knew that this was hurting him, too. But she wasn't calling for her daddy.

An uncomfortable dampness pulled me back to reality. The fever had broken. My clothes were drenched in sweat and clung to my body.

I looked at Sophie's face. Her eyes were open and clear, no longer trapped in nightmare. Instead, there was a different look. Concern? Relief?

The sound of the monitors again entered my consciousness, pulling my focus beyond Sophie. I saw my husband standing behind her, his face mirroring hers. I smiled. They looked so much alike, daddy and his little girl. I noticed that I was the one in the bed now, not Sophie. The dripping I.V. ran to my arm, not hers. The monitors were attached to me, not my Sophie.

Relief flooded through me as the last of the fever dream cleared. Sophie was fine, a beautiful, healthy little girl who was going to grow into an amazing woman.

If the treatments work, I might live to see it.

"I'm not sure about this," Christy said, and Ben rolled his eyes.

"Someday," he said, "they'll make a movie about this. Do you have any idea how revolutionary this is? Who do you want to play you in the movie?"

"I told you, I'm playing myself."

"Oh, right," he said. "You're an actress."

"Why do you have to say it like that? Like it's a joke?"

"Hold still," Ben said. "If you get yourself all worked up, this won't work."

"It just really freaked me out the last time," she whined. "The giant rat and all those twisty passages. You weren't there. You can't imagine what it was like."

"The maze is an experiment," Ben said. "This is science, and science involves experimentation. The rat adds an incentive to escape."

"It smelled terrible," she said. "It wasn't like a dream, it was real. The snuffling sound it made, the way its claws scratched on the ground, its huge red eyes —"

"Stop moving your head so much," Ben interrupted. "This equipment is sensitive."

Christy Adams was lying on a futon bed in a small dormitory room. Benjamin McGraw, her boyfriend and the Bassett School of Technology's top engineering student, sat nearby.

Any medical professional would have recognized the GE medical monitor at the bedside, measuring everything from Christy's pulse oximetry to her cardiac output. They'd have been familiar with the intricate net of EEG electrodes affixed to Christy's face and scalp, finely attuned to the continuous activity of the countless neurons firing in her brain.

What they would not have recognized was the device to which the electrodes were connected — the device now cradled in Ben's hand. His freckled brow furrowed as he tinkered with the delicate circuitry within the small, unmarked black box he had invented.

"What will the giant rat do if it catches me?" Christy said. "Will it eat me? Or does it think I'm a female rat? Will it try to, you know, have its way with me?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Ben said, completing his adjustments and closing a panel on the box's side. He placed it on a small table beside the monitors. "Like I said, it's only a dream. If it becomes too much for you to handle, I'll wake you. And anyway, the rat won't catch you if
you keep moving. You can run slightly faster than it can. I designed it that way."

"Why does it have to chase me at all? Why not put me in a maze with Brad Pitt?"

"Or maybe Paul Kinison?" Ben snapped. "You'd like that."

"That's not fair. It's over with Paul, and you know it."

"Let's begin," he said, changing the subject again.

"But —"

"If you don't want to be a part of this, that's fine," Ben said impatiently. "There are plenty of others around here who'd be glad to participate. But don't come crying to me when they get famous instead of you. This is among the greatest technological breakthroughs ever! Custom-made dreams ... think about it. Why watch your favorite character on television when you can be in the starring role? Why read a romance novel when you can close your eyes and wake up in the hero's arms? And imagine the educational applications! You could master a foreign language while napping. You could absorb the works of Shakespeare overnight. Heck, with my little black box you could learn to perform open-heart surgery in your sleep!"

"Now," he concluded firmly, "are you in, or out?"

"I'm in." Christy rested her head on the futon. "Let's get this over with."

***

Ninety minutes later, the EEG monitor and Christy's fluttering eyelids confirmed that she had entered deep REM sleep.

Ben carefully checked the connections on the electrode net, then hunched over a nearby laptop, flexing his fingers as though preparing to perform a Mozart sonata.

Onscreen, a cursor blinked expectantly.

RUN MAZE.EXE

The screen flashed.

EXECUTE? Y/N

Ben tapped the Y key, then got up to microwave some popcorn. On the futon, Christy sighed softly.

Christy opens her eyes and finds herself confronted by a stone wall. She is amazed at how solid, how tangible it seems. She runs her hand over its rough surface, tracing the cracks and contours with her fingertips, and it feels as real as life. She can scarcely believe that she is dreaming.

She turns, making her way down a long corridor. The passage forks, and Christy takes the left path, searching for a way out.

Ben shoved a handful of popcorn in his mouth, washing it down with warm Coca-Cola.

MODIFY MAZE LEVELS=LOOP

Again the screen flashed.

WARNING! INFINITE LOOP WILL RENDER MAZE UNSOLVABLE.

EXECUTE? Y/N

Ben's right index finger struck the Y key; his left, meanwhile, found the R.

RUN RAT.EXE

EXECUTE? Y/N

Christy hears a familiar sound from somewhere deep within the labyrinth — a low thud, like a bomb exploding far away.

The distant rat unleashes a grotesque squeal. Now Christy can hear the steady boom of its footfalls as it moves, and she quickens her pace. Dream or no dream, she is badly frightened. She should never have agreed to do this again.

Ben drained the last of his cola, then crushed the can and tossed it on the floor. On the futon, his girlfriend, the subject of his experiment, moaned softly.

Rats in a maze, Ben thought. That's all we are, rats in the maze of existence, bumping into each other, crawling over one another, all searching for the cheese, searching for whatever's next, the magic door that will somehow lead to fulfillment.

One such rat was Paul Kinison, the university's rising football star. He had bumped into Christy in the maze of existence, had stolen her from Ben. Eventually she came crawling back, realizing that Ben's genius-level IQ and wealthy family amounted to a bigger piece of cheese than Paul's uncertain prospects for sports stardom. (There was also the fact that Paul liked to argue with his fists.)

Ben had taken Christy back with open arms and a forgiving smile.

MODIFY DREAM LUCIDITY=NULL

The screen flashed ominously.

WARNING! LUCIDITY VALUE ZERO WILL RENDER SUBJECT UNAWARE THAT SUBJECT IS DREAMING.

EXECUTE? Y/N

Ben chuckled to himself as the keys chattered beneath his fingers. He paused to devour more popcorn.

MODIFY SLEEP TIMESPAN=LOOP

The program appeared to freeze as this last command was processed. The hard drive purred; the cursor stopped blinking for a few long moments. Christy groaned and stirred slightly. Ben licked salt from his lips, waiting patiently.

CRITICAL WARNING! INFINITE LOOP WILL INVOKE SLEEP STATE FROM WHICH SUBJECT CAN NOT BE AWAKENED.

EXECUTE? Y/N

Ben flashed the trademark geeky grin that had caught Christy's attention in the first place, pressing the Y key without a moment's hesitation.

The monitoring equipment pinged as Christy's heart rate slowed; her eyelids ceased fluttering. She twitched once ... twice ... then lay still, her chest slowly rising and falling.

Ben finished the popcorn, wiping his hands on his shirt, then typed the final command with a flourish:

MODIFY RAT SPEED+5

EXECUTE? Y/N

"Uh oh," Ben whispered, jabbing the Y key. "Better watch out, Christy. Somehow I don't think this rat will be as gentle as Paul Kinison was. Maybe next time you'll think twice before you ... oh, never mind. There won't be a next time, so why bother talking about it?"

On the desk beside the monitor, Ben's cell phone began to ring. He laced his fingers behind his head and reclined in his chair, profoundly satisfied.

Later, he would inform the police that his girlfriend hadn't shown up for a dinner date. They would find her on Broad Street, the apparent victim of a hit-and-run. She would be transported to Bassett University Hospital and eventually to the Long-Term Care unit at Maplethorpe Medical Center, where Christy Adams would score a solid 4 on the Glasgow Coma Scale.

The Dream Machine was indeed a breakthrough. However, Ben wouldn't be announcing it to the world. He didn't need fame and fortune; the McGraw family trust fund had set him up quite nicely, and celebrity would only draw unwanted attention. By keeping the machine a secret he would, of course, be depriving humanity of its countless benefits ... but he didn't give a damn about that.

There was simply too much fun to be had.

Ben picked up the phone on the sixth ring. "Hello?"

"Uh, hello," a timid female voice said. "I saw your wanted ad in the student paper. Something about needing research subjects? Says you'll pay fifty bucks?"

"You've got the right number," Ben replied, cracking open another can of Coke. "What's your name?"

The air was fresh, he imagined it as blossom-scented as it touched first the gauze curtain and then his wet skin. The sunlight glinted in the distance beyond the indistinct shapes of people hurrying and bustling about their business. It was then he heard it. Silence. He held the breath from rattling in his chest. Silence.

He felt himself drifting, hot, cold, sweating, shaking. The light gauze was now thick and wet. And it came again, the dripping. He tried to hold on to what he knew, who he was, what was real. What was real? All he really knew was that he couldn’t go back. It was waiting down there, in the deep…

They talked in hushed voices, casting glances as long as their worried shadows falling against the cracked plaster walls in the late afternoon sun. He’d been brought in on Friday running a temperature of just over 40, plummeting early Saturday down to 36, peaking at 41 by noontime Saturday. Throughout today it had been running at a steady 40.5. It had been a weekend shift the young physician couldn’t wait to end. Sunday. He checked the clock. An experience of a lifetime they had said, it was certainly that. Hot, humid, heavy; the jungle air was thick with insects. Two more months. He checked the clock, he’d just be glad to see the two more hours when his shift would be finished.

The young doctor looked across to the first bed on the ward. Admitted in a state of incoherent delirium, his backpack had screamed out gap-year-traveller. The rigor and constant fever cycle meant a no-brainer of a diagnosis of classic malaria, which the blood test in this godforsaken backwater took forever to confirm. He’d monitored as the young man drifted in and out of consciousness. This place, this heat, this jungle had left him empty. He was pretty certain this one wouldn’t be fatal, but with the inter-cranial pressures, who knew what brain damage he’d be left with. The clock ticked over another five minutes. He sighed and replaced the drip, its dripping echoing the ticking to the end of his shift.

Slipping. A wave of nausea enveloped him and he grasped with every fibre of his being at a damp and heavy world slowing around him. Again. The dripping. Louder. Drop by heavy drop. He forced himself to focus on the liquid in the bag above his head, dripping now in slow, slow motion. The thick gravid bulge of a single droplet, growing, fluid bulging within its skin; only to break free, and writhe on its decent sucking with it light and warmth and life.

Dragging, slipping, falling away from the world; a world that held no promise now, hazy and grey, it had the consistency of a memory, moving in slow, slow motion. The heavy air still rippled with a groan that he thought he might have made as he slipped out of time. The bustle of the world was now lifeless and cold. He closed his eyes. No one would hear him now. And as he relaxed, he shivered. And then he remembered. The realisation creeping slowly. It was like last time, and the time before…

A half wind blew across an empty landscape, a hazy broken vista of ruined buildings. He could see the wind rolling in, and feel the foreboding it was carrying. And in his mind’s eye, he could already hear it. The air damp, chill, heavy, silent. But it was there. A shadow of a hint of a trace. Humming. He felt it stronger. Vibrating. Penetrating every fibre of his being. His limbs numb, heavy. Run! He knew he needed to run. He knew he would never be fast enough, but he knew deep within what was left of his soul he had to try.

His working day was as good as over. The angry heat of the day calming as the sun smeared its blood red traces across the horizon. The boards creaked and the walls seemed to sigh as he looked for a last tired time down the aisle. He was drained of any capacity to care. His heart yearned now only for comfort and civilisation and air-conditioning. His shift was done.

The livid speck making its was through the devastation broke the heavy silence, its ominous hum echoing through his head and heart. Closer. And as it came it became engorged until it filled his mind’s eye. Its eyes bulging, throbbing. An angry, gluttonous lust driving it. Lust for blood. His blood. Thick and dark. And the air was heavy with blood. His blood. Rust, scent like iron. Filling, clotting his lungs. Bruised wings beat in time with an aching heart. And slower, slower. He was falling. The devastated half remembered, half ruined buildings fading as the insect pierced his skin. His heart fell into darkness, as the creature closed upon his soul.

The young graduate physician poured a glass of red wine and sighed. He felt a cool breeze waft through the open windows. He imagined it as blossom-scented as it touched the light linen curtains. The colonial teak furniture radiated decadence in the elegant moonlight. He relaxed and closed his eyes. Tomorrow would be another day.

Through the window it came. Angry. Humming, swollen with the blood and souls of a lost generation. He was slipping, and the darkness was coming…

It was one of those dreams that even while you knew you were dreaming you can't wake up. Tom just stopped struggling and went with the flow. This is what you get watching late night nature shows, he thought, as the turbid water flowed past his ankles. He was standing in a jungle and the river was in flood. Monkeys and birds screamed as animals that couldn't climb splashed toward higher ground.

Tom saw a peccary go down in a flurry of fish and blood. The piranha were hungry. He found a vine and started climbing, but the ropy vine kept pulling free and dropping him back into the water. He tried another one with the same result. Finally he found a tree branch that he could reach and he climbed up on it just as the school of piranha swam under him. Then he heard a loud crack and he fell down into the middle of the vicious fish.

Tom sat up in bed with a gasp. That was a nasty one, he thought. Mariam slept quietly beside him. That was good. She usually woke up when ever he moved. He slipped out of the bed and threw a robe on over his boxers. A glass of milk would help drive that dream out of his head.

He padded over to the fridge and opened it. A monkey was sitting on the shelf beside the milk. It was shivering and glaring at him. It screeched and jumped at him. Tom threw it off as icy water began pouring out of the fridge. He pushed the door closed and felt water rushing past his ankles. He felt something brush against him and he jumped onto the counter. He saw a huge shadow swim past him. It seemed to take forever to pass. It turned into the hall.

Mariam! He had to rescue her. He jumped back into the water which was now up to his knees. He could barely keep his footing as he made his way to the bedroom. The water was pushing past his waist now and he wasn't able to move forward. He saw the immense snake start to swallow his beloved wife.

A surge of water swept him off his feet and he choked as he went under. Something bumped into his side.

Tom screamed and sat bolt upright in bed.

Water rumbled and flowed past his bed. The wall collapsed and the bed was floating on a river through his town. The shadow of the vast snake followed them. Cars and houses floated and tumbled in the brown water. It was becoming thicker now, more like mud than water. Tom heard a roar and a wall of mud came at them from the left smashing everything that was still standing. The snake was gone, but the slurry that surrounded them was much deadlier. Miraculously the bed moved ahead of the new flow, but they were travelling so fast that any collision would surely upset them.

The power lines started to drop into the water sending sparks flying. The monkey jumped from a hydro pole and it crouched on the headboard looking at him balefully. This was ridiculous. Tom thought. This is a dream. He struggled to wake up. The monkey screeched like it knew Tom was going to desert it. Just as the scene went black the monkey spoke.

"Daddy, I'm scared."

Tom woke with a gasp. Geina, his daughter was shaking his shoulder.

"I had a bad dream," she said. "There was a big snake under my bed."

"I'll get you some milk and take you back to bed." Tom slid out of bed.
"What is it?" Mariam asked, still mostly asleep.

"Bad dream," Tom said, not bothering to say that it was his as much as his daughter's.

He took Geina's had and they walked down the hall to the kitchen. He opened the fridge half expected a monkey to leap out at him, but there was only the milk and the other essentials of life for a family of three. He poured a glass of milk for Geina and one for himself. He peered out the curtains at his insular little neighbourhood. Nothing moved and the light of the streetlights was steady. He let the curtain fall and turned back to his daughter. She was almost four, but she looked especially fragile backlit by the kitchen lights. They finished their milk and he took her hand to walk her back to her bedroom.

As they walked down the hall, Tom thought he heard something, Geina's hand tightened in his, then a cohort of monkeys rushed down the hall followed by a wave of brown water. Geina's scream became the screech of a monkey and she swarmed up his arm and sat on his head. When the water swept over him she jumped to the light and swung for a moment before joining the other monkeys in fleeing the flood. A shape appeared out of the water. Its mouth gaped open showing Tom the teeth that a moment later fastened on his arm and shook him roughly.

"Tom, Tom wake up." Mariam was shaking him by his arm. He nodded at her and waited for his heart to stop pounding.

"I think Geina is upset about something," she said, "I hear her crying." She climbed out of the bed and wrapped her robe around her. As she did the house shook and the carpet turned to quicksand. Mariam sank with a scream. Tom just managed to catch her arm and pull her back onto the bed. The bed was tilting to the side as it sank into the floor. Tom could hear Geina's screams.

"Wait here," he said and jumped off the bed. He swam through the carpet to Geina's room, but he couldn't reach high enough to turn the knob. He kicked hard, but just sank through the floor to land in the basement. The water was up to his armpits and was hot enough to be painful. A red glow came from the furnace room and steam rose off the water. He tried to swim toward the stairs but the glow suddenly became overwhelming and Tom screamed as his flesh fell off his bones.

"That must have been a bad one," Mariam said as Tom sat gasping for air. Sweat was pouring off him and he could smell the reek of his fear.

"Why don't you have a shower and see if that relaxes you a little?"

Tom crawled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He set the water cooler than he usually did and let the water wash over his skin. He could feel the tension leaving his neck as the water pounded him. The water became colder and he reached to turn up the hot water only to touch rock. The water became heavier and colder until the force of the water fall drove him to the floor. He was pushed into deep water where the currents tumbled him and drove him into the rocky bottom. His air ran out and he gave up the fight.

Tom woke in his bed. Mariam slept quietly beside him. Geina wasn't making any sound. He slipped from under the covers and went to check on his daughter. She too was sleeping soundly. Tom looked in the fridge and everything was normal there. He looked out the window saw a stream of water running down the centre of the street. It grew as he watched it becoming a torrent that sent spray up at it ran up against light poles and cars. Alarms went off as cars began to move and slide down the road.

He heard a rumble in the distance and knew there was something worse on its way. A house down the road shifted as a mass of water slammed into it. The cars were tumbling instead of sliding and the water was still rising.

Tom ran back to Geina's room and lifted her out of her bed. He tucked the blanket around her and ran to Mariam.

"Get up!" he said as he shook her.

"What is it?" she said as she sat up.

"I don't know," he said, "but the street is flooding and houses are washing away."

"The dam," she said throwing the blankets aside. "The dam must have failed."

He felt a shudder under his feet and the house tilted and moved beneath his feet.

"Grab the blankets," he said, "We need to get to the roof."

"How?" Mariam asked.

"Through the attic, there is a big vent I can pull out in the end wall."

He handed Geina to his wife and climbed up the closet shelves to push the attic access open.

Even if this was another dream, he wasn't leaving his family behind.

John the Checkout Operator

Work is hard. I think we all know that, but you would like to think that once you vacate that little space that is your ”˜workplace’, you could forget about it. This is not always the case. People can be consumed by their jobs, eaten up so completely that they cannot help but define themselves entirely by what they do. Some people become Tom the banker, or James the bus driver. I never wanted to be one of those people. At least I thought that if I became one of those people my job would be something amazing, or that at least I’d be so old and broken that I no longer cared. But, I was eighteen, just eighteen when my job became my life. And it was working as a checkout operator in the local Safeway.

I feel I haven’t quite told you the whole story, and you must be thinking, how could your life be consumed by such a menial task at such a young age, you’d be asking why I didn’t maintain a sense of self through social life, dress sense, music choice like all those other disaffected supermarket youths? Well, I’ll tell you. It infected my dreams. I don’t mean I forgot about my goals in life, I still remembered them vividly ”“ I was going to be a pro-footballer or an artist or something wildly romantic and exciting- rather my mind-crushingly repetitive job invaded my sleep. As soon as I would drop off into the land of nod, I would be back at work, back at my checkout I had so recently left. Working an eight hour shift is bad, working sixteen hours then waking up and going to work again is hell on earth.

Having just spent the entire day making small talk with old women, about the different brands of cat food and their effects on a cat’s digestive system, the last thing you want is too repeat that action endlessly for your eight hours of sweet respite.

I talked to a friend about my problem, my disorder, he called it night terrors, hardly a psychological diagnosis I know. But, what he failed to grasp in my telling was that it’s not terror I feel, its monotony. It’s the mindless repetition that really gets to you; day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. And to make it just that little worse, the managers deliberately place you next to people you have nothing to talk about with. This is in the real world; in my dream world I am always alone. The powers that be judge your personality and place you next to the worker you are least able to strike up a conversation with, discouraging unnecessary distractions, but also discouraging any moral. Ever wondered why employees in a supermarket look like the walking dead? It’s because of these little mind games they play, everything is meticulously designed and structured to turn you grey. Grey, neutral, impassive, robotic, simply a mechanism which scans and packs groceries. Most employees manage to avoid this loss of self, loss of soul, but most employees only work full-time. I work FULL-time, I savour the moments in between work and sleep, when I am me.

We sell bananas in Safeway, as you would imagine, but for some reason the adhesive barcode on the bananas is slightly faulty and so is never picked up by our scanning machines. So, we have to manually put in the fourteen digit barcode anytime someone buys bananas. So what, big deal right? So you have to occasionally type a few numbers into a computer. 28957407184017. That’s the barcode for bananas; I have it memorised, it is forever embedded in burning letters on the inside of my skull. Because, every time I close my eyes to sleep, I am immediately awake, talking to an old woman about cat food while eight hours worth of bananas are rolled up to the checkout for me to ”˜scan’.

I should quit, but I am beginning to forget where life stops and dream begins, I’m afraid of what will happen if I leave. John the checkout operator is who I am; how can I go back to being John.

You are in a forest. A beautiful forest. Fog is all around you. It seems like the trees are melted.
"What a strange place...", you think to yourself. You observe your surroundings. On one of the trees the ominous words "Servatis a maleficum" are carved.
The sky seems to be falling down. Soon the sun will fade away and looking around you can see that you are surrounded by silent people with covered faces. A masquerade of sorts, but there is nothing festive about this. In passing, someone whispers to you.
"Go and get your gun out, darling, Misery has come to play again."
You've lived this all before.
Music begin to play loudly, like an orchestra with demons pulling at the strings.
You're the only one who hears it.
Every note sounds like a scream. The lyrics describe vivid memories that don't belong to you. You are in someone elses head. You hear the most personal thoughts someone can have. It makes you feel uncomfortable. You try to run, to no avail. You are stuck. Chained to the ground. They want you to know something, so you wait and listen.
Hours go by in minutes, but a minute feels like years. Suddenly, a change in scenery. This doesn't seem strange to you.
You are now in a white room.
Projections flash on a mirrored ceiling. All of your fears, reflected. In your face. Everything from images of snakes, to loved ones dying. You give the chains another tug.
You still can't escape.
You hear them laughing.
You're giving up, and they're celebrating your defeat.
Gravity seems stronger now. You fall to your knees, crumbling beneath the weight of your own terror.
Why? Why are they doing this to you? What have you done?
An old man with no mask approaches you. With a withered hand he pointed to a hole in the wall.
"Go", he tells you, "before you've run out of time.".
For a moment the chains are gone. You stumble to your feet and run. You run for what seems like hours. You see the hole, but it never seems to get any closer.
Your lungs are burning. Even when you are free, you're still trapped.
A sickening growl catches your attention. A monster with angry green eyes is storming at you. In a panic, all you can think to do is close your eyes. If you are about to die, you don't want to see it happen. You feel it's breath. It's teeth grazing your skin. But it never bites you.
You hear thunder and the ground begins to tremble..
Then you are falling.
You open your eyes. What the hell is going on? The ground has given way and you are plunging to another death.
Bracing yourself for the fall, you see a light at the bottom of the chasm. It is your light. This hole leads to your house. Your room. Finally! A familiar place. You aren't scared anymore. You feel safe.
And then you land.
You hear a horrid thud and disgusting cracks. Broken. You are broken. Like a porcelain doll. Yet you feel no pain.
Laying on your bedroom floor, helpless, all you can do is listen.
They are still there. Waiting for you.
Scratching, desperately, at your window.
They planned it all along.
You just can't take it anymore. You can't keep running from them.
Accepting your fate, you feel calm again.
You close your eyes again, and think about your childhood.
You focus on the memories. Everything that comforts you plays like a slide show in your head. Images shifting in time with your heartbeat.
When you open them, you are in your bed.
Covered in sweat. You are burning up.
You fell asleep with the T.V. on again.
You call in sick for work and make a doctors appointment.