It was a pleasant autumn night with stars shining, a gentle breeze whispering to the leaves in the trees, trying to wake them up. She had finished with her work for the day and having slipped into her favorite pair of pyjamas was looking forward to a well rested night. She had a busy day ahead.
Looking wistfully outside the kitchen window at the darkness, she wished it had been a weekend. This weekend was going to be relaxed for her, with her family going away. She could not accompany them due to her office work; any other time she would have felt, but of late a sense of disconnection had creeped into her.
She sighed, picked up her coffee mug and moved towards the bedroom. Her husband and son had already slipped into a world of oblivion through sleep. She envied them; the ease with which they could sleep, while she just could not sleep even with the prescribed drugs (she had long forgotten where these were lying).
Opening at the bookmarked page, she lost herself in the book. It was a soft romantic, not quite to her taste but since she had picked it up at a friend's place and had to reach the end, she settled down to read the next few chapters, before drifting off to sleep.
Finding herself dozing off, she thought she must be tired today, switched off the lights and embraced the much-awaited sleep.
She was soon dreaming of places long forgotten. Her dreams had always been vivid, with such minute details that often it seemed that she was physically present. In her dreams she visited far off places, places which seemed to have been obliterated from human memories, waiting to be rediscovered, to be visited again. Waiting, shrouded in mystery like a ghost.
She reached the gates of a big city with huge gates which were being guarded by soldiers, who were friendly and let her enter. Smiling benignly at them, she moved on exploring the houses, chatting up with the merchant and vendors in the market. They all seemed to know her and called out to her by her name. She was not surprised, this was often-stance in her dreams.
She entered a palatial house, the owner of which was not present and seemed to be waiting for a rightful owner. Gliding across the halls, she noticed that she was dressed as the lady of the house in long flowing peach colored gown. It was extremely flattering with an empire waist and a gorgeous flowing skirt. The neckline was in the shape of a V with a matching rosette. There was see-through caplet in the matching shades which made the gown more alluring. She stood and admired herself, all the real life flaws having been removed.
As soon as she started to feel hungry, servant appeared with a tray full of food of her liking. She sat down to a sumptuous and decadent meal, which started with juicy fruits and finished with the choices of sweetmeats. Having gorged herself with food, she felted sated and drifted off to sleep.
She was deep in her dream sleep when she felt someone standing near her. She felt a chill run down her spine, tried to open her eyes, but they seemed to have been fused shut. She turned over, the feeling having passed, she settled back into her dream sleep. She felt a talon like finger moving towards her face, tried to move but found herself unable to move. She struggled to move away from the hand.
The finger became a long nail which moved agonisingly slowly across her face, seeming to be caressing her. She was repulsed but failed to do anything. She wreathed away.
The talon like finger was replaced with a leathery feeling tongue, when she woke up and found herself back in the safety of her room, with her son and husband sleeping soundly. She felt the spot in the centre of her forehead tingling and her breath shallow and hard, as if she had been running a mile. She touched her forehead to calm herself, came back with a sweaty palm. She closed her eyes, as soon as the lids closed, they flew open, when she saw a man dressed in yellow with a sinister smile on his face which had a scar running across from just below the centre of the eye to the other side of the chin.
Her heart jumped trying to escape from her chest. It was too real to be just another dream. She sat up, scared to close her eyes, fearing the sinister smile. She stayed up for some time and just as she closed her eyes, there he was leaning against the same tree, waiting for her, mocking her, knowing that soon she would close her eyes.
She tried to get her mind away from the nightmare, and tried to immerse herself in the novel. The leery lopsided smile seemed to jump at her from the pages; she could feel the impatience of the owner of the smile at being denied an entry to the place she was at. He seemed to be hanging just outside the boundary of awareness.
Try as hard as she could, she found herself surrendering to the sleep. He was there, yellow teeth breaking into a smile with drool flowing from the corner of his mouth. He looked at her with his black beady eyes, shuffling closer to her. This time she was ready, so ready for this.
She thought of a dagger which appeared in her hand. He seemed to be aware of her thoughts, snickered at her feeble attempt and wished the dagger away. She felt helpless, and tried to run away to the safety of her room, back to the safety of knowing of her world.
She stepped back, found herself frozen to the spot, looking in horror at the fast approaching figure of her nightmare. She knew there was no escape this time, realising how many times he had followed her across her so many dreams, always on the outside, waiting for a chance when her guard was down.
She prayed that something would wake her up from this nightmare and closed her eyes.
