Dreamgirl

            Here I am, lying in darkness that isn’t darkness at all. I am unaware, but I can see through his eyes. I see, without knowing I see, a bathroom sink. I feel, without knowing I feel, a brush on my teeth. I taste, without knowing I taste, the minty toothpaste in my mouth. Without knowing it then, I see his reflection, and a photograph in his hand of a woman. I am not this woman, but she was my basis. In a sense, she was my mother. I stay there, unconscious, unthinking, as he gets into bed, as he plunges me into true darkness, and as he gradually fades from thought himself.

        The darkness fades, and I begin to take form. I begin to become aware once more. I look down at my hands, for I now have hands and eyes of my own, to see that I have taken my usual form. I am the woman from the picture in body, and in spirit, I’m my own self. I watch the world around me gradually materialize. I’m in the house I’ve often seen the man call home, without knowing I saw it at the time. I gradually hear the approach of what remains of his self awareness, and prepare myself to change. The man’s semi-self asserts its spirit over everything in its vicinity. When he walks in, I’ll act in accordance with his conscious thoughts until he leaves.

       When he walks in, he isn’t himself, but towering black monster, with metal blades in place of his hands. I’ve been through this experience many times, but fear bubbles up within me as his thoughts override my own. I recoil as always, but as always he corners me, and as always he begins to carve through me. I scream in pain and terror, but as I lay there, some part of my spirit remains. Some part of me wants to break the routine this man has made for himself. That part of me pushes past what seems like physical pain, but is really emotions that aren’t my own. That part of me yells,

     “It wasn’t your fault!”

   He pauses, and I say it again.

          “She would’ve done it no matter what. Let her go.”

       The world is plunged into the blind blackness of before. Before I can only unthinkingly perceive what he perceives, I hope, deeply and sincerely, that I’ve broken it up. I hope that the routine is over, or at the very least, that things are about to change.