Monday, October 1, 2012

Bathroom Monologue: Which Nightmares Have Been True?

The nightmares won’t stop. Some nights I don’t sleep, some lucky nights I don’t dream, but every time I dream, Marcus is there. They’re holding his head in a tub of iced water, his arms trembling behind his back, twine digging into his wrists. They’re dropping a burlap sack over his face and beating it until he bleeds through. He’s crawling across an empty room, so emaciated he can’t stand anymore, lips cracked, eyes begging his holders for food. I want to hold him, I want to put a glass of water to his lips, but I can’t. I can never help him, because when I wake up, he’s still dead in some foreign country. So please, please. I’ve taken every drug, I’ve seen three psychiatrists, I’ve had myself committed – it doesn’t matter. The most honest advice anyone of them ever gave me was that I can’t get rid of them, only learn to deal with them. So help me deal with them, and let me know which nightmares have been true. How did he die?

6 comments:

  1. Another very brief but incredibly intense one. Well done you.

    I feel sorry for the narrator, though, because knowing which nightmares are true won't help. That's not dealing -- that's just more obsessing. When they start to dream of Marcus dead, that will be dealing.

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    1. It is quite possible that the knowledge only cause her to destruct worse. This is one of those pieces where I only indulged the POV's morality and motivation, rather than casting a judgment. I think both your and Cindy's interpretations are reasonable responses, though I would hope that Cindy was right, just for the widow's sakes.

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  2. The nightmares, seem to me, and the true horror is not knowing how Marcus died. Once that is known, the narrator will find some peace.

    Tense writing in a small portion - brill as always.

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  3. And that sort of grief and pain never disappears. Sadly. It becomes a question of learning to live with it and adjust to a new normal. This short piece packs a powerful punch. Interestly I had thought it was a male narrator - readjusting changed nothing for me. Thanks John.

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    1. I went back and forth on the sex of the narrator. It's never said, so there's nothing preventing the audience from picking one or the other. For what it's worth, I started it with the narrator as male.

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  4. I could actually feel this one. Short but powerful.

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