Girl of My Dreams

The first time I dreamed about her, she was naked, but her body was wrapped in movie film, like some kind of sexy mummy. She didn’t say anything, just turned to me and started crying, her big eyes filling up, then overflowing with huge shiny tears. “Kids’ tears.” I thought in my dream. She wasn’t the kind of girl I usually dreamed about, she was slender, with hardly any breasts at all, and only the barest hint of hips. She had a small, heart-shaped face, with a splatter of light freckles across her small, upturned nose. Her eyes were a deep green and her black hair was cut in one of those bobs that’s longer in the front. I remember thinking she was too cute for a wet dream. The film was wrapped around her torso, as she moved it shifted, revealing glimpses of her teacup breasts and the dark hair below, winding down to her thighs, and trailing onto the floor behind her.

I woke up the next morning feeling sad and worn out, which was weird. Normally I woke up from naked girl dreams feeling ready to face the day, kick ass and take names, but that morning I felt like I was dragging myself through my morning routine. I couldn’t shake that crying girl’s face out of my mind. As I lethargically clicked buttons on my keyboard at work, I tried to place her face. Had I seen her here at work? Maybe in the coffee shop downstairs? I felt like I knew her from somewhere…High school? It was driving me nuts.

I was still brooding about it on my way home, leaning against the glass wall of the bus stop and chewing on the corner of my lip. Something caught my eye on the ground. There was a little cluster of litter trapped in the corner, a coffee cup, a flier for some rock concert, cigarette butts, and a short strip of film. My heart shivered a little, but I bent down and picked it up. It was six frames of dark movie. I held it up to the sunlight, and there she was. My dream girl.

The first frame showed her cowering in a corner, trying to cover her nakedness with her arms, her feet pulled up under her, with her face turned to the wall. Her neck was pale and smooth, but there was a bruise rising there, like someone had grabbed her roughly where it met the shoulder. There was a shadow cast over her, it got bigger in each frame and in the sixth one, I could see the barest sliver of an arm. A big, muscular one, covered in dense, dark hair. She hardly moved in the frames, just curled a little deeper into the corner.

I looked around, but couldn’t find any more film on the ground. I went home feeling ill, my heart heavier than ever. I tossed and turned that night, and when I finally feel asleep, I dreamed of her again. She turned towards me again, her big eyes full of tears. “Who are you?” I tried to ask her, but I couldn’t make any sound. She began crying. “Help me.” She said, and her voice was thick with sadness.

I woke up with my pillow soaked with tears.

I called out of work that day, I felt like my heart was breaking. I hadn’t felt that way since my Dad’s funeral, three years before. I stayed in bed, curled up and moping until ten or so, then got up to use the bathroom. I stood over the toilet, and peeking out from behind the tank was a strip of film. My hands shook as I picked it up. It was longer than the first, about 20 frames.

The man drew closer to her in each frame, his hand reaching for her. The angle of the camera cut him off at chest level, never showing his face. He was broad and built, covered in dark hair. He was naked, and the hair even covered his ass. She cringed further down, but in the last frame, his hand closed around her upper arm.

I was shaking hard all over. My heart seemed to actually ache in my chest. I could feel it throb with every heartbeat. I spent the day in bed, with my blanket pulled over my head and drowsed a little in the afternoon. And dreamed.

She was crying harder than ever, her whole body shaking and her chest was hitching madly in and out. “Stop!” I tried to scream at her. “Stop crying! You’re breaking my heart!”

“Please.” She sobbed, “Please help me.”

I woke up, my own chest hitching with tears. “Who the hell are you?” I shrieked, the sound of my own voice scared me so bad I let out another thin shriek. My neighbor pounded on the wall in retaliation. I jumped out of bed, and threw on clothes, needing to get out of the apartment, feeling I’d suffocate if I didn’t. I pounded down the two flights of stairs to the lobby and ran out into the twilight. I stood on the bottom stair a second, sucking in deep breaths and trying to calm myself. And there on the ground, fluttering in the light breeze was another strip of film, over six feet long.

I held it up, and as I did, the streetlight above me flickered on. The man was dragging her across the room, throwing her face down across a table, yanking her legs around, than began to rape her. My stomach turned and I had to look away. But I felt my eyes drawn back, dragged back, and ran them down the rest of the film. She tried to fight, tried to crawl away, but the man punched her hard in the back, then grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face down onto the table. In the last frame, there was a trickle of blood running across the table, dripping from her nose and mouth.

I threw it back on the ground, the breeze picked it up and it went curling down the street, tangling around a stop sign. I followed it, and saw another strip down the street, tied to a sign reading, “SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY”. It wound and curled its way around the corner and disappeared on the next street. My feet began walking that way. I tried to stop, I didn’t want to know where that film led, but they continued moving anyway.

It felt like I followed that film for miles, weaving thru neighborhoods I didn’t know, neighborhoods that got trashier and trashier, stepping over hobos sleeping on sidewalks, dead cats in the gutters.  Sometimes the film wound up poles and signs, and I caught bits of the movie, he raped her, beat her, raped her some more, and beat her some more, she was covered in cuts, welts, she was hardly recognizable anymore. Finally, the film began winding down a narrow alley, choked with garbage. It dove under a pile of metal scraps that had fallen against a wall, and disappeared there. I began pulling the metal aside, it was heavy, and there was a lot of it. I began to uncover a rusty steel door, held shut by the debris for god knows how long. I kept pulling the metal aside until I could yank the door open.

It was dark inside, and I could hear a fan blowing endlessly. I went in, pulling my lighter out of my coat pocket as I did. I flicked the wheel, and saw the room from the film. There was an old projector set up on the table, and a man was sitting in a chair next to it, facing the blank white wall.

“Hey.” I said, but the man didn’t move. The fans whirred on and on. I stepped closer. “Hey.” Nothing. I drew closer, and my lighter’s flame finally fell on him fully. He was dead. Long dead. The fans whirring endlessly somewhere in the darkness had dried him completely, his skin stretched tight over bones, his pants were a moldy puddle around his ankles. His left hand was lying on the reel of film in the projector, like he’d died caressing it. His right hand was in his lap, curled around what was now a scrap of old, old leather.

Someone sobbed softly behind me.

I spun around so fast, my lighter blew out. I fumbled with it again, trying to light it, but my shaking hands only spun the wheel, then slipped off the button.

“Help me.” It was her voice, the dream girl, the film girl, and I knew what movie that man had been watching as he died, trapped in this room by the pile of metal that had fallen over, trapped in here with his dying, broken toy and his sick masterpiece.

I finally struck the lighter, and I saw a bundle of cloth in the corner. My heart gave a final lurching bolt of agony, then fell back into the normal, steady rhythm it had been keeping for 27 years.  I knelt at the cloth and peeled it back. She was cringing in the corner, her skin pale white, those big tears running down her cheeks. She turned her face to mine and whispered, “Take me out of here, please. I don’t want to be in here anymore with him.”

“Ok.” I said, wrapping the cloth around her body, covering her naked body. “Ok, let’s get out of here.” I picked her up, she was so light, she hardly seemed to weigh anything. She pressed her face into my neck, her tears beginning to slow, then stop. I carried her through the door, and she sighed as we passed out of that awful chamber. She seemed to get lighter still, and I looked down at her. She was gone, I was carrying a pile of bones, broken and splintered from all the beatings.  A single tear rolled down my cheek and struck the top of her skull, ran into a wide fissure and disappeared. The skull caved in with a soft whispering sound, and then crumbled into fine dust. As I watched, the rest of her bones broke apart into dust and blew away in the night breeze.

End

*I actually had this dream, and woke up crying for no reason. I never had it again, but it made me really sad all day for some reason. I kept feeling like I knew her, but I'm absolutely sure I don't. I guess my head just crossed wires with someone elses.