Today’s Prompt: Write about something mysterious.
Vague. Soft. Paintings of gray birds peel from the wallpaper. I dream the whole flock of paper painted birds crowds around the window well and begs for their freedom. I dream the pain in my lower back from sleeping sideways will either sprout to angel wings or horrific, skeletal claws. I join the flock a savior or a destroyer.
I wake, thoughts slipping like goo, tonight at 6 a.m. I did my best to reverse the clock to go back to 4 a.m, I squeezed an hour of sleeping into the 10 minutes before my alarm blared, but still my eyes ache like I didn’t sleep enough, didn’t fly with the flock long enough. 10:31 p.m. to 6:26 a.m, that’s only 5 minutes shy of fully functional, according to the doctors I no longer count on.
Did you know you can survive roughly 5 minutes without air?
I walk the waking world, pain in my lower back like fire devouring all my oxygen, feathers singed or claws glowing; according to the legend, there live two wolves inside you, the good wolf or the bad wolf wins by the one you feed, I plant seeds to blossom into the sunlight feeding us all.
Vague. Soft. I wake, and the eggshell walls of my bedroom never had gray birds wallpapered among them, those were only the shadows of the moon and the city lights but mostly the headlights from down the street, car alarm blaring at 2 a.m. Half-asleep, I couldn’t speed up time to make it go silent for 13 minutes.
It’s too early for this. My eyes ache at the color of eggshell, that’s why. You never bothered to explain that my dreams needed extra time to incubate, did you know some people don’t dream at night? Or when they do, they walk to the fridge and find a cake with different words than they expected. I didn’t know that. When I dream, I dream about
a dog bleeding to death, a pirate ship showing up at a community fair, an evil ghost taking over my brother, me and my friends at a waterpark turned zombie-riddled attic. No, don’t look at me like I’m crazy. Some people honestly think they can reverse time in their sleep.
You know it’s too early for this. It’s still dark outside and my good wolf is starving for sunlight, that’s why. Did you know only the bad wolf stoops to carnivorism? Then it goes and eats the seeds I planted for the other one, why is it so hard to feed my good wolf?
6:26 a.m, my dreams leak like goo and I can’t remember if yesterday we went to a community fair and rode the tugboats or no boats. Did we used to have a dog named Scarlet or am I making that up?
You don’t get to tell me my sleep-deprived pain will go away, especially this early, I know it will fade, because I will sprout angel wings and chase the moon so I can dream longer about the bird flock that’s yet to peel free from the eggshell walls.
I know it will, when I grow fire-tipped claws from my spine and shred the counting-doctors 5 minutes shy of fully functional.
I know it. Even though the hour’s too early and I thought I could squeeze more time into mere minutes but of course, that doesn’t make sense in this waking world.
Jordyn Saelor 