The Dream

The eye blinked once, twice, and then vanished. The smoke outside curled around the stationary forms of the patrolling police, and the glass of his windows were starting to blur. He stared at the solitary clear corner where the eye appeared and released a breath he did not know he was holding. He resumed washing dishes.

The mold on the wall behind his tv had nearly reached the floor, he remembered. He’d have to call the cleaners again. Hopefully someone coherent would answer this time. Else he’d have to wait a month again for the company to hire new people.

As he put away the last of his dishes, he heard a faint wailing coming from his bedroom. Must be the monster, he thought. He wiped his hands on the towel that hung from the fridge handle. He artfully dodged the hand that darted out from the small space between the bottom of the fridge and the linoleum. He snickered. She never caught his ankle again after the first four times.

He walked back to the living room. He passed by a row of pictures in frames above a sheet covered piano, with more pictures pinned below them. Some faces had red x’s over them on the glass, while others had a circle around their heads. He backtracked when he noted that the frame above the bass notes had fallen forward. He righted it and smiled at his own face behind the frame, caressing the red x over it. He rearranged the rest of the picture frames in case they were on the verge of wobbling face first too. Satisfied, he continued to walk to the living room.

Once there, he assessed the mold on the wall. His mouth was twisted in distaste, but there was nothing he could do without the cleaners, unless he was prepared to sacrifice his hands. He plopped down on the couch and blindly reached for the remote on the table beside. He found a hand around it. He gave it a comforting squeeze and wrenched the remote from its grip. He released a long suffering sigh before turning on the tv.

Daily damage report, switch.

A weather report on loop for 50 years, switch.

Static, switch. Static, switch.  Another 10 channels of just static, switch.

Finally, a woman with skin the color of the night and hair to match appeared on the screen. She wore a glittering dress and blinked her one blue eye at the audience slowly, in a twisted imitation of a saucy wink. He grunted. An out of tune piano began to play off-screen and she began to sing.

He bobbed his head along to the melody, and as the song approached the chorus, three men in tweed with faces wrapped completely in yellowing bandages walked up beside her. There was no change in her expression as they took their positions, but her voice hitched just before she sang the chorus.

A seven-digit number appeared on screen, increasing and decreasing every so often. The men in tweed took out knives of different sizes from their inner jacket pockets. Once again the woman’s voice hitched.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance and shook his head. That was a no for tonight then. He picked up his phone on the table (thankfully left alone) and dialed a number he knew very well. It rang twice and then static. Already used to it, he simply said, “No,” then hung up. He watched the numbers on the screen decrease further. The woman was visibly shaking and her eyes were shining. Her voice, however, remained stable and serene. She looked directly at the camera with wide eyes when she reached the bridge and opened her mouth in an attempt to smile.

He shook his head again and patiently waited for the song to end.

Before the final key was pressed the woman’s eyes had darted towards the left, obviously hoping for leniency. What she saw made her eyes flutter, and a single glistening tear dripped onto her dress. She turned to the bandaged men beside her and put her hands together and knelt. “Mercy!” she cried. They paid it no heed and two of the men grabbed her arms. The last was sharpening his knife with another man’s knife. He brought up the blade to where his eyes should have been and seemed satisfied with what he didn’t see. The woman, meanwhile, struggled against the grip of the two other men. She screamed about her eye, and then her toes, and she just wailed and wailed and wailed.

His face was blank as he watched the third man press the tip of the knife on the woman’s eyelid. His shoulders tensed when the man pressed harder and woman’s already unbearable wailing increased threefold. When the woman slid to the floor, he turned the tv off. He stood and stretched.

His eyes snapped open.

It was just a dream. He was on his bed still in his pajamas. The curtains prevented any light from penetrating into the room so it seemed as if it were still dark. He got up and walked to the door when he heard scratches coming from below his bed. He turned and saw black. He grinned as he recalled the wailing monster in his dream. He walked to the kitchen for a glass of water and spotted the dishes he forgot to do the night before. He groaned before robotically starting. He hummed the song the woman in his dream was singing, and at the corner of his eye he saw a flash of white by the blurring window.

The eye blinked once, twice, and then vanished