By John Tustin
You know how a couple of times a year, at night, you’ll have those quiet hours while in bed—lying to yourself by saying to yourself that you’re tired? You know how during that time you’ll just think about random things? And I’m not talking about dolphins having sex with other dolphin’s blowholes kind of stuff (although I have thought of that). I’m talking about personal experiences, the really bizarre ones. The most utterly bizarre moments.
You know those moments, the ones that stick out, the ones that really put themselves ahead of all other memories in your head even if they have no right to? And those moments aren’t really ever significant, just really weird.
I’ll remember the time I saw a cat while walking the backstreets home that looked exactly like my own cat except more mature. I could swear to God that it was the mother to my cat, the mother that abandoned her in a bush outside my house. But when I’m trying to sleep, I won’t think about the time I actually found my bush kitten. It’s weird right? Like shouldn’t we be thinking of the moments that truly mean something to us? I’ll remember walking and taking the transit home by myself after hanging out with friends, while listening to “No Nut November” by Matt Watson in the winter cold. But I don’t remember fighting a fake custody battle for the stuffed Pokemon I won at a claw machine in the mall with my friends.
I’ll remember surreal, yet very real memories … things that no doubt happened, but still feel like they didn’t. I’ll remember these surreal memories where I acknowledge nothing, not people nor my surroundings, just myself. And, the only reason why these moments stand out and become surreal is because these moments are nothing but myself, moments that are rare. Memories that can be told as one-character anecdotes.
And while looking back on those times, I go back, temporarily, to that state of mind. I go back to a pleasant solitude. After revisiting these random memories and reliving them again in my head, I finally achieve my goal! I fall asleep.
When a person’s state of conscious thinking ends, a state of subconscious thinking takes over. So, we dream. For me, I rarely dream, maybe only every couple of months at best and these dreams are almost always nightmares. The night after one of my two rabbits died, I had a dream that I’ll never forget. I went to bed very early that day, I was extremely tired from having to console my sister, when I couldn’t even console myself.
The dream started like my normal day would, except without Coco, the rabbit that had died. I walked downstairs to check up on Silver, my other rabbit. I turn the corner and I see the fetuses of multiple baby rabbits and kittens. All of them are gasping for air, trying to breathe but they can’t, because they don’t have lungs yet. I looked around to try to make sense of what was going on, but I couldn’t. I was completely terrified for myself and these unborn rabbits and cats. So I ultimately decided to try to help them.
One by one I picked them all up and put them into the cage. When I was done I noticed that my rabbit Silver was still in that cage—scared out of her mind at what was going on. I had forgotten her and now she might have a heart attack, something that’s always a concern for me as rabbits can be prone to them. So I had 2 choices, to reach my hand into the cage to extract her from the sea of dying un-animals so I could take her upstairs with me—or to run upstairs to get help from mom, which could very well kill Silver. I chose the second option. As soon I arrived upstairs, I woke up.
I can also remember other bad nightmares that I’ve had before. There’s one where my parents are standing over my grave, one where I suffocate in the middle of the ocean, and one where I bled out of my arms until I woke up. On the rare occasions that I do remember a dream I’ve had, they aren’t pleasant.
But, on those few nights of the year when I have those quiet hours of trying to convince myself that I want to sleep, only to end up remembering bizarre experiences, I fall asleep and have the following dream.
I am on a beach. It’s late at night, not so late that I’m worried that the sun will set soon, but not so early that I have to worry about other people coming. The sand for whatever reason is lavender, both in color and scent. Unlike the sand that I’m used to it’s soft and full as if each grain is part of the same whole. I’m sitting on the sand, careful not to get it in my pants, but not too concerned as I know what’s gonna happen. I’m looking out onto this light blue ocean which looks and feels utterly empty, yet it feels like it has boundless energy and life. It smells of vinegar and salt, but it doesn’t burn my eyes for whatever reason. Behind the ocean and surrounding me is a dark red sky, devoid of stars and the moon. The tide pulls in and out right at my feet although there is no moon. Eventually when I feel like it’s been enough time, when I have this feeling of finality, I stand up and walk into the ocean. I swim until I see the only species that lives in that ocean, the bright orange crab. When I finally find the crab I chase it down through the water for about 2 minutes until I catch up to it and grab it. First, I just look at the crab; then I stare at it with my look of contempt, although I hold none for the crab.
Then I wake up.