Fair Warning: The following daylog entry contains one or more of the following:
Please exercise care in disposal. This item not recyclable. Thank you.
-last night-
The jet pilot fantasies induced by the sussuration of air through my soft plastic facemask weren't enough to keep me flying happy in my dreams. I have only fragmentary memories of what I saw/did/flew/was/heard/felt; a few coins of brightness scattered through a dull musty brown velour that is the remainder of my night.
I have sleep apnea, and have to wear a silly mask thing called CPAP, which does an absolutely amazing job of keeping you awake and drying out your throat to something around the level of the Gobi at three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon.
In any case, I do have some few crumbs on the dreamtime trail to follow. I spent much time with someone, in my dream; someone without a face or name, without a voice or a scent but a powerful golem of personality and want, waiting for me to find them in the waking world. Without seeing her, I felt she was beautiful; without hearing her tones I could tell she was eloquent. Without talking with her I knew of her genius; without feeling her I knew of her warmth.
We were friends, newly met, hesitant, awkward, all those things, and more, made worse by my desire for her companionship and the underlying desperation for anyone that poisons such fragile ripples as our interaction. I beat it down, and tried to smile past the lump, feeling us sliding down that slope to friends.
My fault.
I could feel the rationalizations starting, the familiar throbbing pain arise to be stifled. In the busy chaos clockwork of my mind, plans A through Z were flying through the gears in stacks of filigree paper cards so fast that they were burning. Their smoke tinged the world with a sharp acidic flavor of resignation. We talked gaily; we spoke of inconsequential things, of personal things, of grandiose things, of us. The familiarity and the ease with which I could talk to her slipped easily around the barriers built; inside, I raged in anguish at myself as I coolly and adeptly wove a disengenuous web of reserved affection and platonic connectivity.
There was a gun in there with me. I didn't use it. No matter what the dream, the setting, the people, the crash, I have the gun. I know that. It is cleanly functional, too elegant to be evil and too severely practical to be beautiful. It holds fourteen rounds. I'll only need one.
In my dream, we went to an event - I don't know what. A party? A wedding? A ballrom dance? A reception? All I do recall is that we were dressed quite well, friends on the move. She was wearing white, not black, but it suited her so well, the small demure yet eye-winkingly nasty dress, in silken flows of white. We were entering the hall, talking and laughing as I bricked up the wall ever higher.
I recall, then, of her spying some friends or acquaintances and moving off towards their group, asking to meet me at the bar in five minutes. I somewhat weakly told her that there was no need, she should feel free to hang with the friends she'd seen.
She gave me a slightly angry look, which cleared, and with a somewhat rueful smile said "No, I'll meet you at the bar."
… to which, in my ever-so-perceptive autoimprisonation, I said "Why?"
There was a pause in which she stopped and half-turned back to face me, laid her right hand on my forearm and moved her face up to whisper in my ear-
"Because I love you."
...and like that, she was gone, leaving me to stand in the thunderous rain of barricade and barbed wire that even now was invisibly and silently smashing down around and onto me as the obsessively-constructed walls split and shattered before a simple, truthful phrase that had little and everything to do with me at all.
Unable to recover, I watched her walk to her friends, turning at the last moment before reaching their table to give me a secret but eloquent smile.
I had time for the prickling hotness of my eyes and nose-
I woke to the humming rush of the airmask, my nose and thus breathing completely blocked with sudden swelling, with hot angry wishing tears rolling down the outer corners of my eyes to race hot across the cartilege of my ears before diving into the fabric of the pillow.
Memory is faint but clear. I awoke with the mask thrown across the room, a nastily sniffly nose and a murky stain of lost and empty hopes around both sides of my head.
This is why I don't own a gun.