one stormy night

nothing stirred outside. i was sleeping in my parents bed next to you but some inner demons must have tugged at my consciousness so i got out of bed over the boudoir table with all my little precious pins and necklaces and brushes. i smiled at their familiarity. the mirror told me i hadn't slept enough and the darkness outside confirmed it, yet inside the room the light had that sunday morning ten o'clock golden sheen to it. how could i sleep? upstairs lived the other one with all his sorrows. wanting to make sure he was alright i slipped on my satin robe and climbed the wooden steps. his room looked just like ours. underneath a mountain of feather beds and cushions i saw his face, angelic, asleep. all was still, everyone was contently dreaming, and me the nightwatchman, i could set myself down at the far end of our bedroom on my writing chair, knees crisscrossed, wrapped in a blanket, with bachian cello sonatas in my ears, and record all these dreamer's stories. they weren't mine, oh no. i never took the claim that they had sprung from my own head. i agreed with epicurus that they traveled lightly, image by image, word by word, in dream pixel fashion, like precious little birds who couldn't see in the dark, and would reach me as if by accident. then they had to slip back out from my fingers onto the pages. by day they could find the places they had intended to go.
now it was past midnight and it was time for me to begin. there was still a few pages missing from the story with the doll. these had been my mother's dreams i believe. is this why i hadn't given up her bed? i needed to catch the last little feathers of her nightly visions since she had departed so long ago and who knew how much longer i could still find traces of her here on earth. i began to write and it felt laborous somewhat. i became the girl in the woods who had been led there by a spirit. at first it had this menacing presence and i had been so scared to meet it face to face. a year had passed and still i was hanging around the outskirts of those moorlands. this night of perfect quietude and midnight sunshine was going to be the night to finally follow the path.
and suddenly it was no longer frightening and the story unfolded and concluded at the same time. i had written the end before and needed to fill in that final puzzle. what was now missing was the piece that would solve everything. and it came to me in form of a great wind, a storm so big like it hadn't happened in a hundered years. this was the missing link to blow out all the old ghosts. a grand finale that ended up with two glowing faces looking up at the clear sky, up at the twinkling stars above. the wind had thrown them to the ground while it had pushed out the cloud that had veiled their view of the universe. now all was bright, all was clear.
as i put down the pen, i heard a knocking on the shutters outside. who could it be, i wondered. it had been years since anyone had ever come to this old house so deeply hidden in the forest. it had been built before the last thousand year war, a secret place with thick walls built into the side of granite rock inside a mountainous ravine. had someone finally made their way to find it? the noise became louder. it was a violent rattling now. my love was stirring slightly in the bed and uttered a groan. so i jumped and tore open the window, pushed out the shutters and yelled into the night, who are you that disturbs us at this hour? but i saw no one. instead i was greeted by a bout of air so strong it pulled my hair up toward the sky and pushed the shutters so hard that it nearly hit my face. a great wind had begun. so great that i would hear about it later in the newspapers about torn out trees and fallen structures. we heard it the entire night, howling lustily, angrily, pulling at the branches of the great oaks as if they were the strings on a violin, making the most eerie of melodies. i had slipped back into bed by then and felt my love's body heat so close to mine. i breathed in the perfume of his skin and held him tight. we made it through the night and the next few days, when the storm kept raging. a few shingles had flown off the roof when we finally could venture out of doors to inspect the damage.

but the story was done.

"we are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream" the upanishads