One of those dreams

Here’s a glimpse of a story you might enjoy if you are curious and courageous enough to peer into the innards of Modern Gothic. It is the first thousand words of 'Livid', the second story in the anthology.

Have you ever had one of those dreams in which you know you are dreaming yet, despite all your efforts, you cannot wake up? You have become your own dungeon. You are a prisoner of your sleeping self. You might never awake. 

The first time I heard those words, I knew they had been said to me before. I did not hear them on the previous occasion because they were spoken in a dream. Sounds in a dream are silent.
      The second time those words were spoken, I was watching a performance. It was seven months after the first time they had been directed at me. A light came up on the stage, and there she was: the woman from the dream. I knew it wasn’t actually her. Nothing in the theatre is actually what it seems, not even the truth. She wasn’t as real as her first manifestation had been; the one my mind had been made to exhume. 
      The cone of light that defined her was narrow and ethereal. It was as if her existence was being illuminated by someone who knew what a mere impression of her would mean to me. The chair from which she stared had furled spines that were longer than hers, forcing her into a forthright posture. Her limbs, however, told of resignation. 
     “Only you can release you, and you are not responding,” she said, without lifting a finger. 
     As each sentence announced its entrance, my mind reintroduced its former appearance before me. That face, those fingers, that blouse, that brooch, that voice. The speaker was the same person, saying the same words, but not in the same place. The last time I saw her she was not on a stage and I was not seated in an auditorium with seven hundred others. 

     Her outfit was more conventional than fashionable. She wore a cream cotton blouse with a two-inch collar, fastened at the back and studded with a deep blue brooch at the throat. Her earth-brown skirt was worsted and durable. She would have slotted unobtrusively into the high street multitudes at the start of the second decade of the twentieth century. This occurred during the month of November in 1913; an ominous year. 
     She shifted in her seat, aligning herself even more directly towards me. Then the sharpened words came. 
     “You will not feel my grip on your scapula.” 
     Those words sliced into me. I had heard them before but they had not been part of the dream. 
     “You will never see the lacerations.” 
     A rational curiosity elbowed its way to the front of my shock. What would the others in the audience make of that remark? They would be storing the comment, presuming it would have some implication later, while I knew it was being said to reawaken a confidential recollection of something from my past. I began to perspire. Her voice reverberated. Deep within the ellipsoid of my cranium, the beat of my pulse became audible. 
     “My kiss will be a firebrand,” she said. Upon hearing that my lips burned, scorched by their own salt. 
     “You will not feel my teeth on your clavicle.” The sweat from my neck raced for my spine. 
     “You will not feel your collarbone snap,” she said, and that was enough to render me unconscious. 

     I had frequented the music hall in Sawdoctor Street on multiple occasions, and I had been in the manager’s office several times, but never in a semiconscious state. They administered smelling salts, which spurred my responsiveness whilst simultaneously reinstating the shock that had removed it. I am convinced that the scent of sal volatile had been a component of the dream from which I had been told I would not awake. The cornice of the office had been domestically neglected. Spiders’ strands had become dust bunting. I was semi-prone on a chaise longue, brushed velvet in texture, sage in hue, and worn in condition. 
      Miss Westhead gave me sweet tea, under Mr Crayford’s supervision. My collar had been removed and placed, with its bone and brass studs, alongside the contracts on Mr Crayford’s desk. I remember making bungling apologies and hearing Mr Crayford’s and Miss Westhead’s fervent dismissal of them. The sugar in the tea had been counterbalanced by brandy. Gradually, that concoction roused me sufficiently to partially recall what had caused my collapse. Once I became aware of where I was and to whom I was indebted, I was anxious to speak to the person that had brought about my predicament. 
      I complimented Mr Crayford on the potency of his bookings. He smiled indulgently, and I asked if I might meet with the lady performer to offer my appreciation of her skills. It was Miss Westhead’s turn to indulge me, laughing warmly and encouraging me to drink more of the restorative brew. I was not going to be dissuaded, however. Even in my unsettled state, I was conscious that I must seize the opportunity to discover why the woman on the stage had repeated precisely the words I had previously dreamed, and then wed them to others that I had heard spoken in very private circumstances. 
     I pressed my request again. Mr Crayford remained polite but his charming tone took on a steely firmness. No such act had appeared that night, he told me. Miss Westhead added her adamance. At the moment when I had fainted, she said, everyone else in the auditorium was watching a magician. “An illusionist,” said Mr Crayford. 

     I took the last tram to the eastern suburbs of the town. It terminated a mile short of my destination which was the horseshoe arc of Whitebeam Avenue, whereon stood three detached properties that were too old to be desirable and too viable to be demolished. Interspersed between the residences were towering tree sentinels. Some were examples of the eponymous whitebeam species, but the majority were horse chestnut. All had shed their leaves and hence their limbs slashed starkly against the tombstone stratus. The hour was far from civil, but here lived the only person who could help me.

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This story continues as ‘Livid’, the second of six chilling tales in Modern Gothic published by Fly on the Wall Press, and available in bookshops or directly from the publisher: here.

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If you happen to be in the north Lancashire area on 19th November 2024, I will have a supply of the paperbacks on the uneasybooks stall at Barton on the A6 just north of junction 32 of the M6. Not only will you get the anthology at a bargain price, a significant proportion of your payment will go directly to the host charity.

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