Definitional Reports, Vol. 1: Nuptial Nightmare
Last updated: April 19th 2023
The void. Organic asteroid field. An ill musical instrument. Bag filled with my decapitated head sliced in two. Arranged marriage. Catatonic portal-faced thing. The girl with the mouth full of eye. Did I piss myself?
SELF-REPORTED CLASS: OPERATOR.
COMPUTED CLASS: CARRIER.
REPORT TYPE: RECURRING DREAM.
REPORT:
I keep having this dream. Nightmare, I suppose. I'm adrift in a void. Space-like, but with a putrid stench. An asteroid field surrounds me, or so I think at first.
An organ is playing. Its timbre familiar, but awry. A pipe organ, but ill.
I see my headless body, sliced in half, floating before me. As if guided by the organ's drone. To my left, a bag containing my decapitated head, sliced in two. It's not an asteroid field. It's many versions of my mutilated body, all around me, as far as I can see. A kind of energy, or soul, intermingles with the organic rubble.
I can see nothing, too. I don't mean that I am unable to see. I mean that Nothing is also there.
As I look around, trying to put it all together, I see the logic in it, the connections. The gory mess has a logic. A story to tell. The soul-like thing is the logic. I feel like I understand it. But it always escapes me upon waking.
I try to flee the void, escape the gory mess, but they follow. My pieces, disordered and macabre. The organ swells, until it distorts itself and overwhelms me. I put my hands over my ears and close my eyes.
Then I awake. Or so I think.
I'm in a church, at the altar. Marrying a woman I did not choose, arranged by our families for the sake of clan survival. Like in ancient times. Divorce not even a concept.
The woman is veiled. As I take a closer look, I sense something amiss. Something beneath the veil. I look around. There's no one else in the church, except for three young girls, watching from below. The one on the left bears a bloody wound where an eye belongs. The one in the middle has her two eyes. And the last girl, on the right, has her two eyes as well, but she grins, wickedly, with delight, and reveals an eyeball clutched in her mouth. And I know it's her sister's missing eye.
I ask them what's going on. They stare, but say nothing, then their stares fixate on my bride, who in turn faces them with her back to me. She lifts her veil. The girls see her face, and start grinning, in approval. She covers her face again, and turns back to me.
I look more closely now, and realize there is no face behind the veil. It's a hole. And the hole is a portal, and the portal is to the void. The void where I was. I peer inside, and see myself within, as I was before, lost, disoriented, trying to locate the twisted organ.
This grotesque organ. It's here. In this cross-less church. Now playing a disfigured wedding march. Discordant notes displaced, squashed, twisted.
At this point I give up trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, and try to get away from the portal, from that thing that is my bride, but she grabs my arm before I can move. Tight, unbreakable. She then turns, forcing me to face the girls with her.
The three girls ascend the stairs. The one missing an eye says "I'm satisfied," then asks the one in the middle "Are you satisfied?" The one in the middle answers gently, "I am satisfied," and in turn asks the one with the eye in her mouth "Are you satisfied?" and this one too acknowledges, with a grinning nod.
The girl with the eye in her mouth turns to me and widens her grin, before crunching down on the eye, soft tissue bursting, gelatinous retina dripping down her chin.
And I awake. For real. Legs drenched in sweat. For a moment convinced I've pissed myself.
Normally, I wouldn't be reporting nightmares. But I've been having this one almost every day, sometimes during naps. Yesterday on the subway, I could have sworn that I saw her, the bride, that catatonic portal-faced thing, sitting beside me in the reflection of one of the windows. And with all that's been going on lately... I don't know. I just thought I should report it.
(You are reading companion material for the "Operator" song series. Check out the latest song: "Demonic Train Operator 41" bandcamp spotify )