Nightmare

It’s dark.

Yellow streetlights cast a dusty light into the room, illuminating little.

I can’t see the floor. I can’t see more than a few feet in front of me. But I can feel that the room is small.

The walls are close. The air thick.

Cluttered.

I can sense how cluttered it is. An odor of something rotten.

Do I smell paint?

I’m not sure how I got here, but I know I need to get out.

The only way out is forward. Through the room.

I’m cautious where I step, feeling with my toe because I can’t see the floor.

Through the side window, the foggy gold from the street turns to a dingy beige within.

A table beneath the window holds piles. Books, papers, dirty dishes left over from who knows when. Beyond the table, a bench seat is built into the corner walls.

The ceiling is low.

Am I in a trailer?

The door must be off to the right, in the darkness.

I grasp at the dark and take a step. I stumble over something. A step stool? What’s on the floor?

A faint outline catches my eye.

Is someone standing there? Motionless?

My ears prickle. My heart pounds.

I lunge forward, kicking something hard with my shin.

It knocks into other unseen things. Clattering, scraping. Crashes fill the room.

So loud!

I lunge again. There must be a door.

I see it. Faint in the dark. I stride again, as if through a dumpster. My fingers touch the wooden door, thin and cheap. It’s ajar.

My body, already committed, pushes it open. It does easily, and I lose balance.

I fall to my knees, bracing myself as my hands feel the ground of the next room.

Shag carpet.

A noise behind me.

Still on the ground, I kick the door closed behind me. Hard. The cheap wood splinters.

In another room now. Still dark.

Something large looms in the center of the room. Is it moving?

I struggle to my feet. I can see a door behind the heap.

Light– still tan, still dirty– oozes in through shards of greasy glass.

I heave myself, a single stride, then another. Clamoring past the shadow, it tugs at my pantlegs.

I explode into the outside air.

Seaside saltiness, yet cloying and muggy.

A noise behind me.

I stand atop a thin staircase, wooden and decrepit.

No railing.

Rock wall just out of reach.

The stairs spiral down into darkness.