Old Dream

I’m walking down a bleached out street in my old neighborhood. Black and white grain is all I see. I walk idly into a pseudo-friend’s childhood house and I feel like I’m walking into a horror movie. No one is home and the lights are off. I blink into the bathroom, not remembering moving my feet, and glace into the toilet. My father’s head is floating in the shallow water. Just a head, nothing else. Not even thinking twice, I grab what little hair he has left on his head and bring him up to my eye level. His eye’s flutter open and he seems to recognize me. Smiling, he speaks and a smooth British accent flows off his tongue like he used it his entire life.

“Hello Elena, jolly seeing you here”, he says in a pleasant tone.

Looking at him quizzically, I don’t get enough time to wonder where it came from. A monstrous screech emanating from the very walls of the small colonial jolt me out of my revere. He looks at me while raising an eyebrow.

The next thing I know we’re running down the endless street with the same retched looking trees repeating around us. The branches are like claws scratching and groping at my clothes. As we attempt to escape the unknown sound, my father’s head sways this way and that, never stopping his train of thought. I don’t listen.

We finally reach a cliff. The sound is still slowly creeping toward us. Looking down at what awaits us at the bottom of the outcropping, I see a small town glowing in the darkness. It consists of a few small cottages with what appears to only be gas lighting. The ground begins to vibrate with the anticipation of the unknown chaser. My father babbles on with his upbeat musings and I become blank. Then my feet meet air.