The Skull Painting
Talia Ivry
“And when did these dreams begin, Mr. Hughes?”
The man shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes for a moment before answering. He looked a bit dazed, as though he had awoken to find himself sitting for an exam he had to pass in order to please the woman in the white coat sitting opposite him.
“I’m sorry—it’s just—I seem to have…” The man trailed off and looked around the room. It was small, white and windowless. The two chairs that the man and the woman sat in were facing each other, and there were two more pushed up against the wall behind the man. Apart from that, there was a small wooden desk behind the woman. It was not a particularly nice room, though it was very clean. They could have done more with it, the man thought. Considering what it was for.
“Mr. Hughes?”
The white-coated woman uncapped her pen with a sharp click. She began writing on the small pad of paper balanced on her lap. The man watched her as she wrote and the impression of someone familiar came into his head. Something about her hair, maybe, the set of her ponytail over one shoulder. She had thick glasses with large frames that made her look middle-aged, though she was younger than that. Perhaps she had chosen the glasses so as to seem older, he thought vaguely.
On the wall behind her he noticed a small painting of an animal skull. It must have been some kind of bull or elk or something, because it had long curving horns that extended almost to the edges of the frame. The horns were so large they dwarfed the bones of its face, which seemed strange and shrunken. Light reflected off it, and the painter had put black lines around its eye sockets. He kept looking at it.
The woman finished writing and looked up at him. She smiled.
“That’s alright, Mr. Hughes. I was just asking if you remembered when these strange dreams started.” She paused, and the man realized he was still staring at the painting. He remembered himself.
“Yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “I’m just having trouble remembering at the moment. It feels as though it’s only been a few weeks, but I’m sure if you’d asked my wife she’d say it was longer!” The doctor didn’t return his laugh. “It interrupts her sleep, you see. Sometimes I shiver so hard the whole bed shakes.”
“I see,” she said, and wrote in her notepad. “And, would you say these dreams—do they interrupt your sleep, Mr. Hughes?”
“Oh, erm, you could call me Arnold.” The doctor gave a tight smile. Arnold continued. “I suppose so… yes. I often wake up in the night. And if I manage to sleep until morning, I wake up feeling rather… hm. I’m not sure I would call it tired exactly, but there’s something strange about the world, like—” He stopped, and gave a small cough.
“Go on, please.”
“It might sound a bit, well, a bit daft, really, but when I wake up, I sometimes feel as though I’m not really there. The dreams are so…” a noise of frustration came from Arnold’s throat. “It’s hard to put into words.”
The doctor nodded to encourage him.
“Well it’s like, they’re so… so real. I can remember them so intensely: every color, how the people looked and what they said.” The man looked panicked for a moment. “Then when I wake up, I look around me and I don’t quite remember if everything looks as bright as it did in my dream. Like the curtains on my windows, I remember when we got them, because my wife picked them out. She loves bright colors, my wife does, so she chose this fabric of a deep, like electric blue! And she called it—what was it? Something with l… lapum, lat—lattice loosey…”
"Lapis lazuli?”
“Yes! That’s right. Lapis lazuli.” Arnold shook his head, smiling. “So exotic-sounding, I thought. No one else had curtains like these. At least not in Britain.”
The doctor was writing rapidly in the notepad.
“And yet, when I wake up these days, I notice that the curtains aren’t quite…. There’s something faded about them, colorless. It isn’t just the curtains either, it’s the whole world.”
“I see.” The doctor turned to put the notebook on the floor beside her, and leaned forward in her chair. “Now, Arnold, I’d like to try something with you. An exercise.” She pronounced this last word carefully, as though it was chosen far in advance.
For a moment a faded expression came over the man’s face, as though he was withdrawing into his mind. The doctor clicked the pen in a way that suggested a snap of the fingers, and Arnold looked at her face again.
She continued. “We’re going to dive right into one of these dreams together, so that I can get a sense of what’s in your head.” She paused for a moment. “And, of course, it might help you, you know, to talk through them in detail. So. Any questions?”
She peered intently at Arnold from behind the thick glasses. He had the sense again that she was someone he had known once, or met before. He shook his head.
“Sort of a Freud thing, is it? I didn’t realize shrinks still liked that cheeky old sod!” Arnold laughed as the doctor looked on. “Next you’ll be wanting to ask if I fancy my mum!”
“Come now, Arnold,” the doctor said. “We don’t have much time.”
He shivered as he realized she had used his Christian name. Why did he feel a pang of dread at the mention? He had asked her to use it, after all.
Someone appeared at the man’s side and quickly affixed a set of wires to his chest and the insides of his arms. He sniffed as a large black band was placed across his forehead and eyes, almost like a sunhat.
“Well, I’m practically at the beach now, aren’t I?” Arnold joked, trying to distract from the cold that seemed to be spreading throughout his body.
“Just relax now, Arnold.” The doctor said, her voice gradually fading. “Let us take you...” The rest of her sentence disappeared.
There is an inhale, as soft as dust, and on the exhale, an opening of the eyes. You look down, your body is that of a young girl, maybe eight or nine years old. You’re standing in a grassy field and there are others playing nearby. Gleeful shrieks carry on the wind, faint and familiar. A little creature nestles there, in your outstretched hand. Her face is turned downward, little breath easing out. Sleeping. She is so soft, her black fur vibrating under your touch. Her whole being caches neatly in the pink palm of your hand. With your other thumb, you pet the animal. Stroking her small body is like pulling the skin off cooked chicken, so forgiving is the flesh. You cannot help but imagine that if you applied enough pressure with your thumb and the nail of your forefinger, the flesh would separate neatly, bloodlessly. It practically divides itself…
The rabbit lifts its head in the next moment, revealing a single, piercing blue eye. You gasp. You have always loved bright colors. Its smoke-black ears unfold from the back of its neck until they are huge, twice the length of its body. Surprised, you grow fearful. Its front legs begin to stretch out and claws extend from its feet; these begin to dig into the soft flesh of your arm until blood beads up like rosy dewdrops. You cry out in pain, but it does not stop. You think to disrupt its grasp, to throw the animal to the ground.
No.
You look around for the source of the voice.
No.
You cannot let go of this animal. It is yours to protect, like your dollies at home. It claws and claws at you, struggling to free itself, but you hold fast. You know that the fall would damage it, that a broken leg is a terrible price to pay for freedom. It never occurs to you to place the thing down, gently--
A low, ringing voice comforts you. It is a baby, but you are just a child. What did you know of pain then?
“There now, Mr. Hughes,” said the doctor. The man opened his eyes suddenly to find her standing above him and looking down from behind the thick glasses. The frames looked enormous from this angle, they filled up her entire face. A pair of hands patted away the dampness from his brow. Arnold began to turn to thank their owner, but they retreated just as the man moved his head.
“Now then, feeling better?” The doctor sat down in the chair opposite him and capped her pen. She handed him a glass of water and he took a sip, then placed it somewhat self-consciously on the ground beside him. “Mr. Hughes, that was quite an interesting dream, wasn’t it?”
He nodded, gathering his voice slowly from the back of his throat.
“Would you describe it as... similar? To the ones you’ve been having?”
Arnold paused before responding. “Yes, exactly. The colors were so—vivid, like I said. The fur of the little creature! And… my arm…” The man stared at the arm resting in his lap with an expression of wonder. “I suppose you saw all of that?” He looked at the doctor. “What does it mean?”
“Well, Arnold, that is precisely why we’re here today, isn’t it? Let’s start with some simple questions. Who were you in that dream?”
A small wrinkle appeared between the man’s eyebrows. “A girl. Primary school, I should think.”
“You didn’t recognize her at all, then?”
The man shook his head.
The doctor made a small hum as she wrote in the notepad. “Was there anyone else there in the dream with you?”
“I don’t recall anyone else, no. Except I heard voices… of children, like it was playtime and we were outside.” He raised his head and fixed his eyes on the painting of the skull behind the woman. “What kind of animal is that supposed to be?
She didn’t answer the question. “What about the animal in the dream, Mr. Hughes? What can you tell us about it?”
He breathed deeply and closed his eyes. “It was curious because—I felt so at peace when I was holding her, and even when she started hurting me—scratching me and all that, I just… God, I just loved her so much—” The man’s voice seemed to catch slightly. He looked up quickly, alarmed. The doctor’s eyes were inscrutable. Someone cleared their throat.
“We’d better continue on then, Mr. Hughes.” She nodded to the figures behind Arnold and once again he felt the cold press of their hands, an icy pool around his heart.
He felt his breathing elevate, his eyes began to close.
Your eyes adjust to the thin light of evening. A couple, man and woman, come into view. They are standing in a driveway, facing each other. You are close to them, so close you can hear the ripples of air created by their exhalation. They seem not to notice the movement of your body. It is a moment of great intimacy: you turn away.
Though you’ve taken a few steps, you realize you cannot see the end of the pavement; besides, your body is thicker now, you no longer have the motivation of a child. The cool air sharpens your sense of unease. Perhaps you should ask them for help. Surely no one would turn away a sensible young woman like yourself. You try to clear your throat but no sound is produced. Something is happening between the couple.
Your ears register the piercing sound before you do. Automatically the pink flesh of your palms grind into the sides of your head, but this does little to obstruct the terrific pitch boring into your brain. You turn to the source: the couple have begun to fight, to shriek terribly. There are no words in their screams, but the meaning is nonetheless clear--
Presently, the cacophony stops, its contributors having seemed to reach some wordless conclusion. All at once the two figures produce enormous hammers. You watch in horror as the two begin to strike at each others’ legs with great force. The silence now is deafening, louder, perhaps, than the screaming before. Great cracks begin to appear larger and larger in their legs, but their garish smiles only grow. Strangely, there is no blood. It is as if their legs are made of thin stone or porcelain. Your stomach turns in the crushing quiet: not even the hammers make a sound. Working away at each other like this, they seem not to be aware of the harm being conducted to their own bodies, they only revel in the destruction wrought on the other.
The man heard fragments of sound then: rhythmic breathing, muted voices, the scratching of a pen. He tried to kick his body out of the thick layer of sleep that covered his senses. He felt his dream-form take several swift arm strokes to break the surface.
“…sure that the patient is unaware of the exact circumstances of his wife’s…”
His muscles slackened then and he was pulled under.
This time is markedly different from the last. Your body is calmer, looser. You look down in wonder at your chest to find it brown and flat, rising and falling steadily under a thin collared shirt—your old summer suit. You raise your hands to roll up the soft sleeves, bringing firm arms and their film of dark hair into view—it is the body of a man 10 years younger than you are now. Afternoon sunlight collects on the bright blue walls around you. The window is open and the air is warm, soft and languid. It smells of pressed linen and something flowery. You know the smell, your body reacts before you can place it. The wooden floor creaks in a familiar way beneath the soles of your feet as you turn, automatically, before stopping in front of a woman. Your breath halts. Your hands have come up to cover the heated spark emanating from your chest.
Celia.
She is wearing a long white dress, the skirt of it brushes the ground, and her hair is loose, stark black against the pearl tones of her neckline. Her arms enfold you and your senses are heightened to her body: the scent of her smoky hair and warm skin. For an instant she becomes small in your grasp—a little girl holding your arm tightly—then a young woman, and when she steps back again she is your wife. Celia.
Arnie. Her low voice ripples through the air, yet her lips remain closed in a smile. Her pinky finger intercepts a tear from your cheek and she gazes at the tiny orb for a moment, then releases it skyward. Your eyes follow the drop of water as it ascends into the air, sparkling in light. The bright walls you admired earlier shimmer as they meet the sky, shifting from solid to the massive expanse of blue above.
My dear Arnie. Celia’s voice comes to you again. There’s so much I want to tell you, but there isn’t much time. Her voice is so soothing and low that you barely register the shiver that traverses your spine.
Take me with you, darling! I’ll go with you wherever. Celia--
She shakes her head sadly. Please, dear, listen to me. The place they’ve taken you, it isn’t what you think. They aren’t there to take care of you. You don’t matter to them, darling. They’re doing horrible things, they—
Her voice begins to get faint and the walls seem to harden again. She takes your hands and presses them tightly. You must try to resist. Even now, you mustn’t let them see this. They can’t see this, darling. You’re so strong, Arnold, my love.
Your hands stroke her cheeks, her neck. Her dress slips off her shoulders and she begins to float upward, leaving the garment on the floor. Your heart jumps painfully as you watch her rise, but you understand that it is time. Her words filter down through the air as her limbs unfold from the mass of her center, gently enveloped by blue.
Try to remember. Hold on to me. Try, Arnie. I’m with you… I’m still with you... Remember…
They yanked Arnold into consciousness then, and the first thing he was able to discern was the sound of the doctor’s pen clicking rhythmically. It hurt his ears. He looked around at the dull room. Its walls seemed sturdier than before, cold and blank. The woman in the white coat was standing directly in front of him, her face not more than ten centimeters from his. Her glasses, so thick and warped, he now realized, were laboratory goggles.
“Arnold!” she said. “We almost lost you there!” She pulled her face away from his but continued standing close to him. “What did you see?”
The man pulled the wires out of his arm and yanked the visor off of his head. The doctor regarded him with a cold expression.
“I would like to go home now, please,” Arnold said. “I’m not sure I want therapy, after all.”
The doctor exhaled and rubbed her temples. “Mr. Hughes. I shall ask you again. What did you see in the dream? It is very important that you tell me. For your sake.”
He set his mouth tightly and shook his head.
“Mr. Hughes, I’m trying to help you.” She took the goggles off and set them on the desk behind her. As she turned, the man caught sight of a large pair of curving black horns embroidered on the back of her lab coat. He swallowed and his eyes widened. He began to realize where he knew her from. This was not their first session. She met his eyes for the first time and he experienced a small shock. They were dark blue.
“Thank you, but I really would like to go home now.” He paused, and then added another “thank you,” this time more quietly.
“Your wife, Mr. Hughes. Did you see her?” The doctor waited a beat and then continued. “Did she tell you not to talk to us?” The man gave no reaction. The doctor leaned forward in her chair. “Mr. Hughes, it has been fourteen months now since London fell, isn’t that right? It’s been 14 months since your wife was killed.”
The man looked stricken. The doctor continued. “Celia was part of the Resistance, and she never told you. For months and months she passed messages for the rebel leaders and you never suspected a thing. That’s what you expect us to believe, hm? That you had no knowledge of what your wife was up to?” She crossed her arms and looked down at him. “To answer your question, dear, no, you may not go home. Your wife isn’t there anymore, anyway. She only exists in your mind.” She shook her head for emphasis. “Besides, we really are trying to help you here. I know it may seem hard to believe, but once the treatment is over, we’ll be perfectly happy to let you go. May Jackalope watch over you.”
At this last sentence, the man fell forward in his chair. The doctor motioned to the two large men sitting behind him, and they took him firmly by the arms. “Alright, Arn? We’ll take you back to your room now.” The man began to dip in and out of consciousness, and as the men dragged him out of the room he turned to catch a glimpse of the painting hanging on the wall. He realized that the black lines around its eye sockets were letters, and these began to coalesce into words. He struggled to read them, but his eyelids had become heavy, too heavy to hold on any longer. His last thought before he blacked out was the horned animal skull. He realized why he had been unable to place it before. It was a rabbit.
Talia will graduate this December from Pomona College. Inspiration for this piece came from Murakami's dreamscapes as well as the author's own pandemic-anxiety dreams.
The man shifted in his chair and rubbed his eyes for a moment before answering. He looked a bit dazed, as though he had awoken to find himself sitting for an exam he had to pass in order to please the woman in the white coat sitting opposite him.
“I’m sorry—it’s just—I seem to have…” The man trailed off and looked around the room. It was small, white and windowless. The two chairs that the man and the woman sat in were facing each other, and there were two more pushed up against the wall behind the man. Apart from that, there was a small wooden desk behind the woman. It was not a particularly nice room, though it was very clean. They could have done more with it, the man thought. Considering what it was for.
“Mr. Hughes?”
The white-coated woman uncapped her pen with a sharp click. She began writing on the small pad of paper balanced on her lap. The man watched her as she wrote and the impression of someone familiar came into his head. Something about her hair, maybe, the set of her ponytail over one shoulder. She had thick glasses with large frames that made her look middle-aged, though she was younger than that. Perhaps she had chosen the glasses so as to seem older, he thought vaguely.
On the wall behind her he noticed a small painting of an animal skull. It must have been some kind of bull or elk or something, because it had long curving horns that extended almost to the edges of the frame. The horns were so large they dwarfed the bones of its face, which seemed strange and shrunken. Light reflected off it, and the painter had put black lines around its eye sockets. He kept looking at it.
The woman finished writing and looked up at him. She smiled.
“That’s alright, Mr. Hughes. I was just asking if you remembered when these strange dreams started.” She paused, and the man realized he was still staring at the painting. He remembered himself.
“Yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “I’m just having trouble remembering at the moment. It feels as though it’s only been a few weeks, but I’m sure if you’d asked my wife she’d say it was longer!” The doctor didn’t return his laugh. “It interrupts her sleep, you see. Sometimes I shiver so hard the whole bed shakes.”
“I see,” she said, and wrote in her notepad. “And, would you say these dreams—do they interrupt your sleep, Mr. Hughes?”
“Oh, erm, you could call me Arnold.” The doctor gave a tight smile. Arnold continued. “I suppose so… yes. I often wake up in the night. And if I manage to sleep until morning, I wake up feeling rather… hm. I’m not sure I would call it tired exactly, but there’s something strange about the world, like—” He stopped, and gave a small cough.
“Go on, please.”
“It might sound a bit, well, a bit daft, really, but when I wake up, I sometimes feel as though I’m not really there. The dreams are so…” a noise of frustration came from Arnold’s throat. “It’s hard to put into words.”
The doctor nodded to encourage him.
“Well it’s like, they’re so… so real. I can remember them so intensely: every color, how the people looked and what they said.” The man looked panicked for a moment. “Then when I wake up, I look around me and I don’t quite remember if everything looks as bright as it did in my dream. Like the curtains on my windows, I remember when we got them, because my wife picked them out. She loves bright colors, my wife does, so she chose this fabric of a deep, like electric blue! And she called it—what was it? Something with l… lapum, lat—lattice loosey…”
"Lapis lazuli?”
“Yes! That’s right. Lapis lazuli.” Arnold shook his head, smiling. “So exotic-sounding, I thought. No one else had curtains like these. At least not in Britain.”
The doctor was writing rapidly in the notepad.
“And yet, when I wake up these days, I notice that the curtains aren’t quite…. There’s something faded about them, colorless. It isn’t just the curtains either, it’s the whole world.”
“I see.” The doctor turned to put the notebook on the floor beside her, and leaned forward in her chair. “Now, Arnold, I’d like to try something with you. An exercise.” She pronounced this last word carefully, as though it was chosen far in advance.
For a moment a faded expression came over the man’s face, as though he was withdrawing into his mind. The doctor clicked the pen in a way that suggested a snap of the fingers, and Arnold looked at her face again.
She continued. “We’re going to dive right into one of these dreams together, so that I can get a sense of what’s in your head.” She paused for a moment. “And, of course, it might help you, you know, to talk through them in detail. So. Any questions?”
She peered intently at Arnold from behind the thick glasses. He had the sense again that she was someone he had known once, or met before. He shook his head.
“Sort of a Freud thing, is it? I didn’t realize shrinks still liked that cheeky old sod!” Arnold laughed as the doctor looked on. “Next you’ll be wanting to ask if I fancy my mum!”
“Come now, Arnold,” the doctor said. “We don’t have much time.”
He shivered as he realized she had used his Christian name. Why did he feel a pang of dread at the mention? He had asked her to use it, after all.
Someone appeared at the man’s side and quickly affixed a set of wires to his chest and the insides of his arms. He sniffed as a large black band was placed across his forehead and eyes, almost like a sunhat.
“Well, I’m practically at the beach now, aren’t I?” Arnold joked, trying to distract from the cold that seemed to be spreading throughout his body.
“Just relax now, Arnold.” The doctor said, her voice gradually fading. “Let us take you...” The rest of her sentence disappeared.
There is an inhale, as soft as dust, and on the exhale, an opening of the eyes. You look down, your body is that of a young girl, maybe eight or nine years old. You’re standing in a grassy field and there are others playing nearby. Gleeful shrieks carry on the wind, faint and familiar. A little creature nestles there, in your outstretched hand. Her face is turned downward, little breath easing out. Sleeping. She is so soft, her black fur vibrating under your touch. Her whole being caches neatly in the pink palm of your hand. With your other thumb, you pet the animal. Stroking her small body is like pulling the skin off cooked chicken, so forgiving is the flesh. You cannot help but imagine that if you applied enough pressure with your thumb and the nail of your forefinger, the flesh would separate neatly, bloodlessly. It practically divides itself…
The rabbit lifts its head in the next moment, revealing a single, piercing blue eye. You gasp. You have always loved bright colors. Its smoke-black ears unfold from the back of its neck until they are huge, twice the length of its body. Surprised, you grow fearful. Its front legs begin to stretch out and claws extend from its feet; these begin to dig into the soft flesh of your arm until blood beads up like rosy dewdrops. You cry out in pain, but it does not stop. You think to disrupt its grasp, to throw the animal to the ground.
No.
You look around for the source of the voice.
No.
You cannot let go of this animal. It is yours to protect, like your dollies at home. It claws and claws at you, struggling to free itself, but you hold fast. You know that the fall would damage it, that a broken leg is a terrible price to pay for freedom. It never occurs to you to place the thing down, gently--
A low, ringing voice comforts you. It is a baby, but you are just a child. What did you know of pain then?
“There now, Mr. Hughes,” said the doctor. The man opened his eyes suddenly to find her standing above him and looking down from behind the thick glasses. The frames looked enormous from this angle, they filled up her entire face. A pair of hands patted away the dampness from his brow. Arnold began to turn to thank their owner, but they retreated just as the man moved his head.
“Now then, feeling better?” The doctor sat down in the chair opposite him and capped her pen. She handed him a glass of water and he took a sip, then placed it somewhat self-consciously on the ground beside him. “Mr. Hughes, that was quite an interesting dream, wasn’t it?”
He nodded, gathering his voice slowly from the back of his throat.
“Would you describe it as... similar? To the ones you’ve been having?”
Arnold paused before responding. “Yes, exactly. The colors were so—vivid, like I said. The fur of the little creature! And… my arm…” The man stared at the arm resting in his lap with an expression of wonder. “I suppose you saw all of that?” He looked at the doctor. “What does it mean?”
“Well, Arnold, that is precisely why we’re here today, isn’t it? Let’s start with some simple questions. Who were you in that dream?”
A small wrinkle appeared between the man’s eyebrows. “A girl. Primary school, I should think.”
“You didn’t recognize her at all, then?”
The man shook his head.
The doctor made a small hum as she wrote in the notepad. “Was there anyone else there in the dream with you?”
“I don’t recall anyone else, no. Except I heard voices… of children, like it was playtime and we were outside.” He raised his head and fixed his eyes on the painting of the skull behind the woman. “What kind of animal is that supposed to be?
She didn’t answer the question. “What about the animal in the dream, Mr. Hughes? What can you tell us about it?”
He breathed deeply and closed his eyes. “It was curious because—I felt so at peace when I was holding her, and even when she started hurting me—scratching me and all that, I just… God, I just loved her so much—” The man’s voice seemed to catch slightly. He looked up quickly, alarmed. The doctor’s eyes were inscrutable. Someone cleared their throat.
“We’d better continue on then, Mr. Hughes.” She nodded to the figures behind Arnold and once again he felt the cold press of their hands, an icy pool around his heart.
He felt his breathing elevate, his eyes began to close.
Your eyes adjust to the thin light of evening. A couple, man and woman, come into view. They are standing in a driveway, facing each other. You are close to them, so close you can hear the ripples of air created by their exhalation. They seem not to notice the movement of your body. It is a moment of great intimacy: you turn away.
Though you’ve taken a few steps, you realize you cannot see the end of the pavement; besides, your body is thicker now, you no longer have the motivation of a child. The cool air sharpens your sense of unease. Perhaps you should ask them for help. Surely no one would turn away a sensible young woman like yourself. You try to clear your throat but no sound is produced. Something is happening between the couple.
Your ears register the piercing sound before you do. Automatically the pink flesh of your palms grind into the sides of your head, but this does little to obstruct the terrific pitch boring into your brain. You turn to the source: the couple have begun to fight, to shriek terribly. There are no words in their screams, but the meaning is nonetheless clear--
Presently, the cacophony stops, its contributors having seemed to reach some wordless conclusion. All at once the two figures produce enormous hammers. You watch in horror as the two begin to strike at each others’ legs with great force. The silence now is deafening, louder, perhaps, than the screaming before. Great cracks begin to appear larger and larger in their legs, but their garish smiles only grow. Strangely, there is no blood. It is as if their legs are made of thin stone or porcelain. Your stomach turns in the crushing quiet: not even the hammers make a sound. Working away at each other like this, they seem not to be aware of the harm being conducted to their own bodies, they only revel in the destruction wrought on the other.
The man heard fragments of sound then: rhythmic breathing, muted voices, the scratching of a pen. He tried to kick his body out of the thick layer of sleep that covered his senses. He felt his dream-form take several swift arm strokes to break the surface.
“…sure that the patient is unaware of the exact circumstances of his wife’s…”
His muscles slackened then and he was pulled under.
This time is markedly different from the last. Your body is calmer, looser. You look down in wonder at your chest to find it brown and flat, rising and falling steadily under a thin collared shirt—your old summer suit. You raise your hands to roll up the soft sleeves, bringing firm arms and their film of dark hair into view—it is the body of a man 10 years younger than you are now. Afternoon sunlight collects on the bright blue walls around you. The window is open and the air is warm, soft and languid. It smells of pressed linen and something flowery. You know the smell, your body reacts before you can place it. The wooden floor creaks in a familiar way beneath the soles of your feet as you turn, automatically, before stopping in front of a woman. Your breath halts. Your hands have come up to cover the heated spark emanating from your chest.
Celia.
She is wearing a long white dress, the skirt of it brushes the ground, and her hair is loose, stark black against the pearl tones of her neckline. Her arms enfold you and your senses are heightened to her body: the scent of her smoky hair and warm skin. For an instant she becomes small in your grasp—a little girl holding your arm tightly—then a young woman, and when she steps back again she is your wife. Celia.
Arnie. Her low voice ripples through the air, yet her lips remain closed in a smile. Her pinky finger intercepts a tear from your cheek and she gazes at the tiny orb for a moment, then releases it skyward. Your eyes follow the drop of water as it ascends into the air, sparkling in light. The bright walls you admired earlier shimmer as they meet the sky, shifting from solid to the massive expanse of blue above.
My dear Arnie. Celia’s voice comes to you again. There’s so much I want to tell you, but there isn’t much time. Her voice is so soothing and low that you barely register the shiver that traverses your spine.
Take me with you, darling! I’ll go with you wherever. Celia--
She shakes her head sadly. Please, dear, listen to me. The place they’ve taken you, it isn’t what you think. They aren’t there to take care of you. You don’t matter to them, darling. They’re doing horrible things, they—
Her voice begins to get faint and the walls seem to harden again. She takes your hands and presses them tightly. You must try to resist. Even now, you mustn’t let them see this. They can’t see this, darling. You’re so strong, Arnold, my love.
Your hands stroke her cheeks, her neck. Her dress slips off her shoulders and she begins to float upward, leaving the garment on the floor. Your heart jumps painfully as you watch her rise, but you understand that it is time. Her words filter down through the air as her limbs unfold from the mass of her center, gently enveloped by blue.
Try to remember. Hold on to me. Try, Arnie. I’m with you… I’m still with you... Remember…
They yanked Arnold into consciousness then, and the first thing he was able to discern was the sound of the doctor’s pen clicking rhythmically. It hurt his ears. He looked around at the dull room. Its walls seemed sturdier than before, cold and blank. The woman in the white coat was standing directly in front of him, her face not more than ten centimeters from his. Her glasses, so thick and warped, he now realized, were laboratory goggles.
“Arnold!” she said. “We almost lost you there!” She pulled her face away from his but continued standing close to him. “What did you see?”
The man pulled the wires out of his arm and yanked the visor off of his head. The doctor regarded him with a cold expression.
“I would like to go home now, please,” Arnold said. “I’m not sure I want therapy, after all.”
The doctor exhaled and rubbed her temples. “Mr. Hughes. I shall ask you again. What did you see in the dream? It is very important that you tell me. For your sake.”
He set his mouth tightly and shook his head.
“Mr. Hughes, I’m trying to help you.” She took the goggles off and set them on the desk behind her. As she turned, the man caught sight of a large pair of curving black horns embroidered on the back of her lab coat. He swallowed and his eyes widened. He began to realize where he knew her from. This was not their first session. She met his eyes for the first time and he experienced a small shock. They were dark blue.
“Thank you, but I really would like to go home now.” He paused, and then added another “thank you,” this time more quietly.
“Your wife, Mr. Hughes. Did you see her?” The doctor waited a beat and then continued. “Did she tell you not to talk to us?” The man gave no reaction. The doctor leaned forward in her chair. “Mr. Hughes, it has been fourteen months now since London fell, isn’t that right? It’s been 14 months since your wife was killed.”
The man looked stricken. The doctor continued. “Celia was part of the Resistance, and she never told you. For months and months she passed messages for the rebel leaders and you never suspected a thing. That’s what you expect us to believe, hm? That you had no knowledge of what your wife was up to?” She crossed her arms and looked down at him. “To answer your question, dear, no, you may not go home. Your wife isn’t there anymore, anyway. She only exists in your mind.” She shook her head for emphasis. “Besides, we really are trying to help you here. I know it may seem hard to believe, but once the treatment is over, we’ll be perfectly happy to let you go. May Jackalope watch over you.”
At this last sentence, the man fell forward in his chair. The doctor motioned to the two large men sitting behind him, and they took him firmly by the arms. “Alright, Arn? We’ll take you back to your room now.” The man began to dip in and out of consciousness, and as the men dragged him out of the room he turned to catch a glimpse of the painting hanging on the wall. He realized that the black lines around its eye sockets were letters, and these began to coalesce into words. He struggled to read them, but his eyelids had become heavy, too heavy to hold on any longer. His last thought before he blacked out was the horned animal skull. He realized why he had been unable to place it before. It was a rabbit.
Talia will graduate this December from Pomona College. Inspiration for this piece came from Murakami's dreamscapes as well as the author's own pandemic-anxiety dreams.