The multi-coloured parrot

All those stories you were told as a child, the ones about magical creatures, heroes of old or even just the rumours from the local area, you remember them all. You may not think you do but when you dream you walk through the Garden of the Night. The Garden is a massive construct in your mind; there are overgrown twisty walkways, polished stone footpaths, pristine trimmed hedges, large open areas, small nooks to hide away in and anything else your mind can imagine. Each time you sleep you go to the garden, you can wander down a new road to some new idea, and sometimes you might want to stroll down a previously walked route. You can only visit this place when you sleep though, when you wake and are in that stage between sleep and awake you may remember some parts of your adventure, although most facts will be forgotten.

For me, the multi-coloured parrot is always there. I wouldn’t call him a guide as such, rather a companion on my adventures, an assistant maybe. His large beak often points to the path that I’ll take that night although I don’t think he’s the sanest parrot though. Sometimes he points to a twilight path. You know the ones. Filled with horrors and demons that remain with you when you wake, those are the dreams that don’t fade.

The parrot was good at first, sure it was occasionally misguided, and there was the occasional twilight path, but most were pleasant meanders around twisty walkways. But as time passed on by he seemed to change. No longer was there the kind bird that often gave me words of wisdom to my problems, but something else appeared. Something darker. His bright multi-coloured plumage slowly changed. Gone were the lonely blues, the mysterious greens. The bright reds, the vibrant oranges and joyful yellows were the last to fade, like a setting sun, until he was just shades of black, grey and browns. I didn’t notice immediately since it happened slowly, incredibly slowly at first. He choose more twilight paths, most of which caused me to wake in a cold sweat. It seemed that my once dreamy garden and my cheerful guide had become my dark prison and my cruel torturer.

Eventually my dream -self stopped listening to the parrot. It ignored it completely and soon it became just another twilight path in itself. Soon I found myself a new companion. Although I lead the way this time and green and yellow caterpillar just happily sat on my arm, unable to speak. Soon the caterpillar would become a beautiful butterfly which would be able to choose its own paths, maybe even guide someone else in the garden, although I hope they won’t place as much faith in it as I had in the multi-coloured parrot.

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I'm not really sure where I was going with this but I thought I'd post it anyways.