The only details retained by his intoxicated mind came as a sense of having been within a chattering crowd in complete darkness. A lightless space in which a great many bewildering requests had been made of him. And there had been a noise like a wind, or maybe it had been water rushing through an enclosed space.
He sat up in bed and switched a light on. Realizing just how disoriented and dehydrated he was, he clambered out of bed and went into the bathroom to gulp down three glasses of water, something he wished he’d done before going to bed. By suppressing his body’s urge to expel the contents of its stomach, he knew he’d assured a more severe hangover, and a lengthy period of feeling toxic the following day. He’d been careless with drink, and at a time like this. He returned to bed angry with himself and passed out.
Can you ask my daughter to come and fetch me?
He thought this had been spoken from inside another dream, and then was certain the voice had come from inside his actual room. Perhaps it had been spoken in the bathroom from where someone was now running a bath?
They buried me over there.
‘Where?’ he replied aloud to the woman sitting beside his bed. He didn’t see her face, or any of her body because the light that issued from her was too dim. From her voice alone he knew that she was elderly and upset. He could smell her perfume too, something similar to dead flowers.
The work must be completed. And then we will discuss terms.
‘Definitely not. No. No. No,’ he shouted down the dim, white corridor that formed at the end of his bed.
Paint flaked from the walls of his room. The ceiling was stained yellow with water rings.
I am making progress on the fear and dread.
‘You shouldn’t even be in here,’ he said to the woman who now stood beside the bed. She’d come from out of a door further down the white corridor, three times. The third time she’d made it inside his hotel room. She wore a long satin dress, a headscarf and dark glasses. A fur stole culminated in the face of a grinning animal, a horrible fox. Something black stained the front of her gown too, like the residue of a wound. There was a faint light behind her, or around her. But surely this was also part of the dream. He knew he was dreaming, but his level of awareness was unpleasant.
Sink. Heavy, heavy. Sink deep.
Legs going heavy. Sink downwards and stand free. Reduce breathing. Blank mind. Blank mind. Blank mind.
Enlarge yourself. Float out.
From here to there, and back again.
. . . sinking, heavy, heavy . . .
. . . everything’s gone black . . .
Let us go out of ourselves!
In delirium Seb felt his feet moving upwards and towards the ceiling.
No, his legs were still upon the bed. But he was clutching the mattress with his fingers to prevent himself from rising.
. . . we are the soul-bodied . . .
Thin Len was so tall and he went through that nursery on all fours like a big spider.
Let us enlarge!
. . . this awakening was not like the others . . .
You’re never as alive as you are when you leave your body.
Leave your body and walk a few feet over months.
. . . the gliding, the gliding of the double, the gliding, the gliding, the gliding of the double . . .
This coat is too tight . . .
Cast thyself down!
I can’t get back!
Is this the second death? This is not my greater self. Where are the everlasting arms?
I can’t get back!
Can you help me? I know you are close. Where is the light? Do you know?
I can’t get back!
The voices filled the room, overlapped each other, rotated, repeated. Seb had been listening to them for hours, or only heard them once. He didn’t know.
The room was bigger than it should have been. It was a building cluttered with dark and heavy furniture. High ceilings soared above his head, then went further and further upwards.
He was inside a tunnel that smelled of wet bricks and stagnant water.
No, he was inside his hotel room.
The old house again.
No, he was outside in darkness, beside a river.
The room, this was his hotel room!
There was nothing there at all, nothing there at all . . .
He was in a field of black grass. The air was misty.
The room, in the hotel.
The old building with high ceilings, furniture everywhere.
The hotel room.
A corridor of black doors.
Seb sat up in the very bed that seemed intent on releasing him into the air. He whimpered at the darkness that pressed upon him from all sides.
They let go of his hands, but his fingers remained as cold as their own had been, those people who had been sitting beside him.
He threw his body back against the wall and shouted, ‘Get out!’
Fumbling at the stiff, plastic light switches, he became aware of a glimmer above his head. Before the first light came on in the room, he looked up for a fraction of a second and saw a pale smudge submerge into darkness, as if it had been enveloped by water flowing across the ceiling.
You’re dreaming. That’s all.
There was no one in his room. The walls, floor, bed, desk, and chair were now present again. The silencing of the voices was absolute. Everything visible was now contained within four walls and held in place by gravity. That realization made Seb gasp and he was close to sobbing with relief.