The troll-folk surrounded Dave, biting at him with iron blades, gnashing their teeth behind hideous pierced lips under slave-ringed noses, tearing at him with painted and bedazzled claws; the warrior chopped and slashed with a steel flurry, guarding himself behind a round alder shield. He bashed and broke the hideous visages of the throng with his shield, marring the trolls with shattered noses, flowing blood, and busted lips. They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me. I’ll kill them first. The scene faded to black by slumber’s enigma.

He stepped out on the other side of that darkness still venturing through the unknown place of dreams. Dave looked up to the top of a cliff. Billy stood at the precipice. The wind whipped at his silhouette standing dark against the full moon. Dave’s brain fluttered and raged; Billy. I have to save him. He’s going to jump. How do I get up there? Billy laid down on his stomach, reaching over the edge for someone. There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing Billy can do. Whoever that is, we’re both too far away.

A cloud ran across the moon. Everything went dark. Dave was lost. A panic took hold of him; he searched through the darkness, frantic with fear of something vague and lost in the dreamy tumult. Where are they? he thought, tossing the litter of life around in his apartment. The stage was brightly lit, but the abstract clutter of cushions and clothes hid something important. I can’t find them! Where are they? They’ve got to be here somewhere…

Suddenly, the shadow of a person came into the room holding a beer. Is Cliff my roommate now? That’s not Cliff. Who is that? I don’t know who that is. Why do I have a roommate? I’m married. It must be Cliff. “Where are they? I can’t find them?”

“What?” “You know what! My bibles! Where are my bibles!” I have three of them.

“Oh, I pawned those. I needed money for rent,” said the roommate before he gulped from his can.

“What!”

“Chillout,” said Elizabeth.

Where did she come from?

“He just pawned them; we can probably go get them back,” she finished.

“There will be only one. There’s only one at the pawnshop. I need them. Where are they? I need all three of them…”

Dave fell to his knees. He howled with sadness. Sobbed with madness. He ran his hands through his hair and pulled. It came loose like a shaggy dog’s coat in spring. He stared at the large clumps in his palms and watched thin wisps sift through his fingers. They landed in the bathroom sink. Dave looked into the mirror; his hair was gone down the middle except for a thin layer of dull tuft gray with sickness, not with age.

He pulled out his shears and went to work on what was left. I just have to accept this; I just have to accept everything. This is life now. The thin wisps fell into the sink, rinsed away by furious faucet water. His head looked clean now; he didn’t look any healthier.

Once again, the world faded to black. Sleep became peaceful; only for an uncounted moment. The black world shattered; café chatter resounded inside Dave’s head. He stood at the handoff plane; two men, dressed professionally, were yelling at him, berating him, and pointing at their orders. Dave couldn’t make out a word. They just kept pointing and yelling at him through his fish tank. He just stood there, trying to think on his feet. He tried to calm them down. He tried to tell them he’d fix it, that it wasn’t a big deal. They couldn’t hear him either.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Well? What are you going to do about this?” Dave finally heard one of the men say.

Dave opened his mouth to speak; an alarm broke the scene. The café’s roaring chatter faded. The long dream and all its anxiety curled back into the dark enigmatic world of sleep.

“Ha! I’m not gonna do anything,” said Dave. “Not my problem anymore; it’s time for me to wake up!”

He reached over for his phone on the nightstand. It was 10:00 A.M. He started making a concerted effort to get up at the same time every day; maybe it’ll make a difference. He was glad to be freed from the anxiety of that dream, but then he realized he was just going to go face it for real in a few hours. He ignored that thought.

Dave went into the bathroom to pee, brush his teeth, and floss. His mouth bled less since he started flossing twice a day. Imagine that, he thought. The dog whimpered downstairs: Camus had to pee as well.

Dave lumbered down the steps, still in his underwear. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around himself. He picked up the dog, unlocked the back door, and stepped out into the frost. The ground was frozen solid, a sign of autumn’s dying. It would be winter in one week.

After hooking the dog up, Dave went back in and sat on the couch. He pulled out his computer and scrolled through Reddit, reading this and that, not looking for anything in particular now but a state of wakefulness.

He clicked over to Youtube to see what he could find, his mind too groggy to focus on anything worth reading. He could watch something edifying much more easily. But, what am I learning for? What will this do for me? I should think about doing something with my poems. I could make a book of them, just for the heck of it, just to see what happens.

Dave cyber-wandered for the next two hours, too sleepy to actually act on his industrious whims. His wife was upstairs performing a similar ritual of solitude. You know, we should do this together, next to each other. We should spend more time together; this would be an easy way to do that.

No, I don’t want to hear her crap and she doesn’t want to hear mine. I can’t stand the Buzzfeed chatter. It’s so shallow; why does she bother with it? Why do I bother with Wisecrack and Crash Course and School of Life? Learning is supposed to make you a better person, but I haven’t seen it yet. Oh well. Guess I’ll just keep trying. Just stick to it. I don’t know everything yet; when I know everything, I’ll allow myself to have a more serious opinion.

I should do something nice for her. I think I’ll make smoothies. He went into the kitchen and pulled out some bags of frozen fruit and the jug of whole milk. He tossed blueberries and strawberries into the blender. He could hear Elizabeth getting into the shower: good! She’ll be surprised when she gets out. He ran the blender and went into the living room to watch old Lindybeige videos. The blender whirred its angry blades, mashing and murdering the frozen produce.

He heard the bathroom door open.

“Wife!”

“Yes?”

“I made you a smoothie!”

“Oh, thanks! I’ll come get it in a second.”

The morning went on uneventfully. Dave eventually left the apartment, eventually heading to work. Feels like I’m just pushing the boulder up the hill again. Keep pushing, I guess; I’ll find a way to change things. Well, that’s only if there’s such a thing as change, if there’s more to life than hills and boulders. Just keep smiling, Sisyphus.

The meteor of memory struck Dave next. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed as he pulled up to the red light. “My bibles. That dream.”

It’s a strange rush when such a strong emotion comes back so vividly, and it’s even stranger when it comes in such a different sense. The anxiety was now a psychic shadow to be grasped at by weak eyes unfamiliar with its brief, ephemeral flicker. What the heck did that mean? There was a roommate… or were there two? Beer. I wasn’t drinking. My bibles: who pawned them? That feels like an obvious concern about my faith, but I can’t tell if it might mean anything else. Am I afraid of losing my faith, myself, to my day to day life? I don’t know man… I need to sit down on this one.

What else was there? There has to have been more; I slept for eight hours… I think. I’m sure there was more. It’ll come back to me; if it’s important, it’ll come back to me. Dreams are such curious events. They sometimes feel like God’s last words to humanity.