sirens

Sirens, bright halogen illuminations, lighting my face with dark red and sickly bright blue, casting alternating shadows over my features while blinding my eyes with emergency. The dry scent of concrete as it hits my cheek and drags onto the jaw to leave a matte scar over my face - grass. Fresh after the rain, black earth stains my face. Waterdrops wash my hair, as flowers are trampled under my limbs. Glimmer of light. Too bright. Shut my eyes, breathe dust, claw my way through the mud helplessly. A hundred questions go through my mind. The smell of rain comes to my nostrils by way of a slight breeze that washes over my face, drying the mud and providing my lungs with much needed oxygen. I fall, hands over each other, still dark, legs limp and sore.

I turn on my back - Sand. Wet, cold, salty. Strong scent burns my nostrils with salted power. I make another attempt at lifting my eyelids. I cry. Hundreds of shades of purple and orange are reflected in a mirror of water until the horizon. Each little crumple in the eternal sea throws back a piece of the sun at my eyes. A treasure of gold and silver, in a chest covered with a cloudy velvet in shades of purple and orange I never even knew existed. The divine display gives my senses the willpower to climb on my feet and stand up. Water washes wet sand over the scarred skin that sustains my stance. It washes away the pain, and simultaneously increases it with a stinging sensation caused by the salted seawater. As the wind brushes the hair from my eyes and dries the tears on my cheeks, I take a deep breath and explore my surroundings with a slow yet sober gaze. Overwhelmed with joy, I let myself fall into the water, letting my body float, letting the waves carry it away. I succumb to a long sleep which is only interrupted by the stings of salt washing, curing, my wounds.

A long and uninterrupted sleep ends abruptly with the question - AM I DEAD?

The answer doesn't come. Instead, I struggle to keep afloat. Waves, water, wind, foam, noise. I try to resurface. Instead, I sink. Vulgar movements of my hands and legs serve only to draw me deeper, suffocating, burning; my mouth and lungs swallow salty hell. Cough, loose more air in the process - what did I do to deserve this? A thousands thoughts rush to my mind, none of which I can remember the next second - my paradise ends with terror.

As I lift my upper torso, my forehead is dripping with sweat. I use my hands to hold my body straight. No water, just sweat, no sea, just fabric. All is dark except for the window letting in a vague moonlight in a dark and starless sky.

I guess it was all a dream, and so, I shut my eyes - never to open them again, for as they say, the least one can ask for, is to die in his sleep...