Dreamrealms: a feast of fiends

by Nikki Isaak © 2009

(for Ana Ribeiro)

I stand in front of the cinema, its marquee dark in this benighted world.

As I pass the crimson-lit cinema ticket booth, Martha Mathers, a cow-mask-wearing and machete-wielding Jason Voorhees-like serial killer I created for waking-world stories, sits in the ticket booth.  Predictably, she is gore-spattered.

Martha addresses me as I pass the ticket booth: “You want the upstairs theater.”

I nod, open the brown oak cinema doors, and enter the movie palace.

The empty lobby is drenched in solid red: carpets, tapestries, walls, everything.

It’s the kind of theater Dario Argento would’ve shown in his film Suspiria, had it taken place in a movie theater, not a dance academy.

This is also the same theater where, in another dream, kitten-headed paparazzi and celebrities “awarded” me an “Every Time You Masturbate God Kills a Kitten” statuette.

My long-unstroked cock twitches, reflexive, resentful.

I start up the rounded stairs that run along the right wall, and reach the second floor.  Chattering voices are heard behind the theater’s closed oak doors.

I open one of the doors.

Horrors from recent dreams sentient, acid-dripping vines; kitten-headed bipeds; ink-swirly Shadows; others not recognizable, but quirky-looking are relaxing on fifteen rows of small couches, all of which face the movie screen.  Small box-like wooden tables fill connect the couches.

The movie on the screen is one of my all-time favorites, Cat People, made and released in 1942.  On the screen, Simone Simon’s feline-snarly panther-shadow moves confidently down tiled stairs towards actress Jane Randolph, who, looking terrified, jumps into a gym-sized swimming pool to escape the stalking panther.

The dream-fiends haven’t seen me yet.

Heart pounding like a speed-metal bass-drum, I turn to exit the dimly-lit theater but one of the Shadows, slightly taller than the rest, stops me with: “He’s here!”

The others, in their various shapes and forms, turn and utter friendly loud greetings some of them hiss, some of them explode weird-colored ooziness from their gelatinous heads, and others growl or speak English.

Before I can run, the Shadow, who alerted his fellow dream-fiends to my arrival, is at my side.  He hooks a cold, black-swirly arm around my shoulders, leading me gently but firmly down to where the monsters drink beer, wine and soda, and eat pizzas with mostly-familiar toppings.  These food and drink items clutter the end-tables.

“I’m Mort,” the Shadow at my side hisses.  “Relax we’re here to party with you.”

The ghosts of roadkill squirrels, faint and blue something I’ve written about, but not
dreamt scamper alongside Mort and I, squeaking animatedly.  Their tails twitch happily, their red eyes unsettling but less malefic.

As I pass one couch, I hear a kitten-headed biped purr, “I love this movie.”  Her girlfriend, curvy in a dress as slinky and revealing as her lover’s, purrs and continues cuddling with her, their hands stroking each other’s legs.

One of the center couches, soft and cushiony, is empty. Mort indicates I should sit there: the best seat in the house, my father would say.

I sit in the couch.  Mort hisses, “Eat some pizza.  Drink some ale.  We’ve got a few pints of Guinness stout for you, right here on this table.”

He hands me a bottle.  I take it as he turns and faces the theater-crowding monsters.

“This originally was meant to be an intervention,” Mort hisses into a battery-powered mic.  “We were concerned that ‘Nikki’” he uses my writing name with a sardonic tone “after years of living on the emotional fringe, wasn’t going to write edgy stories about us anymore.  Why were we concerned? Because he’s in a solid, waking-life romantic relationship. He honestly loves and gets along with her.”

Monsters chuckle, gargle, cat-call, growl or ooze at Mort’s wit.  A few acid-dripping sentient vines engage in tentacular, sexual flirtations with one another on their bubbling-hole-burned couches.

Mort continues: “But the edginess he displayed with recent stories restored our faith in him, yes?”

More vociferous joy-noises from the audience; a clarion call emanates from a Frankenstein-tall version of Monsvenzilla.  The formerly Godzilla-sized vagina monster hoists glass beer steins in two of her numerous pubic-tentacles.  Her two thick Gumby legs are crossed atop the couch in front of her.

On the couch next to mine, a snobby Los Angeles blonde teases a Shadow sitting next to her.  “Would you be more comfortable if I turned this glass upside down over you?”

The ink-swirly Shadow hisses threateningly at her.  The drunk blonde, wearing a thigh-hugging skirt, laughs.  Her eyes go wide, her too-rouged mouth emitting “oooh!” as the Shadow funnels himself into her panty-less vagina, completely disappearing inside it.  Her eyes go completely black, as if she’s possessed.  She is no longer drunk or laughing.

Mort, seeing this, looks amused.  He continues, raises his glass: “Here’s to ‘Nikki’ one of the few writers who writes us right even if it does take him forever to ‘piece together’ and publish a story!”

I snarf my Guinness pint.  Mort laughs.  The others toast and make happy noises, as well.  Several roadkill ghost squirrels are tying my shoelaces together.  I let them, lest they nip me with their sharp teeth.

The seat of the couch next to me suddenly dents in a weight shift, as if somebody invisible has sat next to me.  I tense in creature discomfort.

“This ought to be fun,” the invisible juggler from a previous dream chuckles, shades of Charles Bronson in his voice.  “You should write about this.”

He chuckles a familiar malevolent child-giggle.

I wake up, heart pounding.  Turning on the bedside light, I reach for a pen and paper, hoping I don’t wake Marie, who gently snores next to me, beautiful in all senses of the word as ever.

_______
© 2009 Nikki Isaak. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

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