The one thing about having nightmares is that you’re generally up very early in the morning.
I suppose that’s a good thing.
It’s 5.36 am.
Wanna hear something scary?
…Throughout the year,
I’ve had a re-occurring dream where I’m a worker at a gallows.
My dreams are usually big glossy cinematic epics and I’ve been having this same dream for a long time now.
My job is to stack newly dead bodies onto a cart for uplift.
It’s mostly the same dream every time but I get variations.
Sometimes,
My job is to take hanged people down and load them onto my cart.
That’s the basis of the dream and I’m always aware of the weight and how hard I have to work.
Othertimes,
I’m stacking heads onto my cart and getting frustrated because they keep rolling off.
Those dreams usually end with me chasing the rolling heads and struggling to pick them all up.
For every one I get back onto the cart,
Another two roll off and bounce off uneven cobbles in the street.
I suppose that’s quite easy to analyse as a stress dream.
I don’t think it’s anything more than that but this morning I only got 3 hours of sleep and had the same dream again with twists:
Just like every time before…
I’m about to start work and I’m doing my usual:
Checking the wheel’s on my cart; making sure they’re okay.
The cart is made of thick, scored wood and I’m waiting to put the dead folk onto it so I can wheel them away.
I’m thinking about how heavy severed heads are and how I could do with some help one of these days.
I must have missed something because my cart starts to tip and in the panic,
I drop one of the heads I’m carrying.
So I stick my foot in its path to stop it and doing that makes me drop another head.
To myself I think: “I could do with someone helping me with this”.
I always think that.
I pick up one of the heads and its eyes open.
The face is an off yellow colour and just before it’s eyes melt, it makes gurgling noises and mouths the word “You”.
And then I woke up horrified.