2009/08/15

Darkness

DaGoddess @ 05:00

Darkness creeps in and takes hold. Gripping my throat tightly in its cold, bony claws, I feel the air leaving my body, leaving me breathless.

My heart beats faster, skipping, then galloping, then skipping again.

Sleep doesn’t come. My eyes close, yet all I get are twisted visions of what might be, what could be. Things I’ve never seen, things I never want to see. Things I have seen that morph into the unthinkable. Rows of headstones becoming teeth, ready to gobble me up, slowly…ripping flesh from my bones, which crunch with alarming clarity and intense pain. Vultures swooping in to peck at my eyes. Worms with razor-sharp fangs, working their way into the core of my body and then gnawing their way back out.

Despite the fans cranked up full power, sweat pools around me. Skin sticking to skin. The smell of my own restlessness and fear is cloying and makes breathing even more difficult.

My head is pounding. There’s a sensation of it being squeezed out my eyes and ears. The lump in my throat — is that from my head or is that from my stomach? It’s hard to tell any more.

Light starts to creep around the curtain edges. Yet it does little to relieve the weight on my soul. It matters not how many pills I’ve taken. Perhaps a whiskey chaser would have been more effective; but then I’m far too sensible for that, I think. Then again, when exhaustion and panic envelope you so completely, is sensibility really all it’s cracked up to be?

I rub my eyes and try to blink the gritty feeling away. I try to swallow though my throat is so dry it sticks together and temporarily restricts my airway even more. I find myself praying the claws dig in deeper. They don’t. I can breathe again. A little.

With a jolt, I’m suddenly wide awake. In those few moments of slumber, I’d managed this nightmare. It takes longer for me to calm down than I actually spent asleep and I wonder if it’s even worth it to try closing my eyes again.

I imagine this is what Poe felt as he wrote his tales of terror. Did he spend endless nights awake and then think the worst? Or were his dreadful visions what kept him awake? I’m not sure which is the case with me. Does it really matter?

Sometimes you should just skip the iced tea at dinner and stick with water. Caffeine isn’t always your friend.

Deb. Because she’s not the only one with a vivid imagination.

9 Comments

  1. Deb’s funny! Your little experiment in terror is much more real… the first two sentences told me all I needed to know: FEAR. I hate the fear that cloys at all the senses and seeks to overpower…

    Doesn’t all sound like vivid imagination, either. I got that way over a suspicious freckle one morning at 3:00am. [It’s always three in the frigging morning, isn’t it?]

    :hug:

    Comment by Pam — 2009/08/15 @ 06:34

  2. Poe’s got nothin’ on you.

    Comment by Cheri @ Blog This Mom! — 2009/08/15 @ 06:44

  3. Dark nights of the soul?

    Comment by The Gray Monk — 2009/08/15 @ 09:06

  4. I’ve had it this bad, and that’s not good.

    Unless you can put a plot to this and publish it. It still won’t be completely worth living through it, but a little money wouldn’t hurt…

    Comment by Lloyd — 2009/08/15 @ 11:31

  5. For some reason I thought I had this set to post on Monday. Silly me. Guess I can’t count.

    Sometimes…sleep eludes me. And there are scary things that go through your mind. I don’t worry about things coming IN to my home…I worry about what’s already here and maybe unseen. Cuz I’m weird that way.

    Comment by DaGoddess — 2009/08/15 @ 16:25

  6. Joanie- I am speechless.

    That was incredible!!!

    And me? no caffeine after noon. NONE :toast:

    Comment by vodkamom — 2009/08/15 @ 17:45

  7. You’re a regular Sylvia Plath (writing wise). :clap:

    Comment by JihadGene — 2009/08/15 @ 18:29

  8. Thankfully (???) my life is thus far longer.

    Comment by DaGoddess — 2009/08/15 @ 18:32

  9. geez… did you write, in the long ago, at Writer’s Cafe or Diaryland? The style is good, strong, dark and familiar. And btw – may I assume that you ARE familiar with the poem contained within Poe’s short tale, “The Conqueror Worm” ?
    If not, you really must read it. It’s always good for a smile.

    Comment by J3 — 2009/08/16 @ 13:54

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