Alexandre J Arnau, click
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Blogs by Alexandre J Arnau
fridaynight/saturdaymorning 7/15/2005 9:44:50 PM
i hate antibiotics that's it, i'm done. i don't care how inflamed my testicles get. it's not worth an hour of violent puking and dry heaves. no more antibiotics for me, no sir, i think i'm done.
i am starting to hate dreaming. there was a time when i looked forward to it, wondering what fantastic, horrific, sublime, or plain weird things i would see. lately, all i get is horror. not in the aliens eating my feet, crazy man with an axe, or running from hordes of zombies horror. i mean the little horrors, the intimate, hushed ones. when my daughter was born, i had recurring dreams of losing her, in as many horrendous ways as possible. it started with the ones you'd expect: she died from sickness, an accident, she was kidnapped, that sort of thing. i thought they'd eventually fade, that i was just having new father anxiety. after a while, though, they got worse. i started incorporating old nightmares of mine into the new ones. the worst were always zombies. i don't know why zombies bother me so much; i guess because its the absence of anima, soul, spirit, or whatever you want to call it, just shambling mounds of flesh, caught forever in a cycle of repetitive, meaningless actions. they shamble, they see life, they chase it, they it eat, and make more zombies. in my dreams, it's armageddon, a hushed, unwitnessed one, except for those isolated in pockets, hanging on to humanity. just like in the movies, but without the hopefulness or melodrama. "28 days later" was the only one i'd ever seen that resembled what i dream, so as good a movie as it was, i wish i'd never seen it, because it amplified the nightmares. i had nightmares for days on end after that movie, always clinging to lisi, hoping she didn't cry out from hunger or discomfort, praying that we weren't heard by packs of infected subhumans, whose only motive to kill was to kill. the worst dream was where we were held up in the local armory, and i had her with me in the tower. the infected/zombies had broken through, and were slaughtering everyone in the armory. i had run with lisi, and as many guns as i could carry, to the tower. i knew it wouldn't be long before they reached us. i held lisi in my arms (she was just a baby then, not even walking), as they battered the door, shrieking inhumanly with bloodlust. i put my back to the farthest point on the tower wall, and waited. finally they had broken through, and were running up the stairs. i kissed lisi, tearfully told her i loved her, that i was sorry, and that i'll see her soon. by the time they got within sight of us, i shot her in the head, and turned to kill as many as i could before they killed me.
of course, i woke up screaming, and soaked with terror-sweat. i jumped over anna, ran to the crib, and looked at her, sleeping the way only babies sleep, grinning with a smile she only recently discovered. i collapsed at the foot of the crib, thanking whatever g*d would listen that it was just a dream.
it's been awhile since my dreams have reached that height of terror, but they still mess with me; i still have them often enough. and i have other nightmares, some of a personal nature, some not. i'm used to it. there is one detail about that one dream that still haunts me.
would i shoot my daughter in the head, to save her from a death too horrible to be real? would it be murder, or mercy killing? do i have it in me? g*d, i hope not.
but sometimes, i hope i have the strength.
