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“What’s wrong?” I burst into her room with uncombed hair dripping from the bath and my bathrobe hanging half-opened.
She was sitting in her bed, sheets all tangled, the pillow clutched against her chest.
When she said not a word, I felt the terror rise inside me, too.
She’d had good cause for nightmares in the past, but it’s been years since any of those had woken her in such a state. Why now?
“What is it?” I crossed the distance from the door in three steps but dared not touch her lest my hands make her remember other ones, a lot less loving. “Can you tell me?”
She shuddered as if coming back from a great distance.
“I dreamt I was the moon,” she whispered. “Vast and cold and deathly airless.
“and,” her breath caught, “I dreamt that he found his way there.”
For the dVerse prosery challenge
Na'ama Yehuda 
Another powerful wow piece of writing. Stunning. 💚
Adele Ryan McDowell, Ph.D.
AdeleRyanMcDowell.com Adeleandthepenguin.com MakingPeacewithSuicide.com Channeledgrace.com
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Thank you, dear Adele! Xoxo. I love your comments…
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Sadly sobering piece Na’Ama, fear rising from the past. It is hard to hide from a specter that haunts the memory, and torments the soul
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Thank you, Rob. Yes, the past can rise unexpectedly. For good memories and bad, only that the bad ones are not at all welcome…
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… a moment of terror – of past memories – caught here perfectly if not frighteningly so.
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Thank you, Margaret. These can grab us unawares, can they not… ?
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A powerful piece. Somethings cannot be forgotten.
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Thank you, Christine. Indeed, some things cannot be forgotten. Some should not. Some would not….
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That’s… breath-stealing. Powerful, and frightening. And I’m guessing typical of post-trauma syndrome
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Thank you, Crispina …. I wish the power of terror wasn’t so profound, or so recognizable …
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I have a friend who suffers … I recognise the words …
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I am so sorry your friend is suffering with PTSD. It is not something I’d wish on anyone, especially as so much of it is wholly preventable. There’s hope for healing, and I hope your friend is getting what help is needed and can suffer less. It is a hard road to walk.
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You beautifully describe the terror of a nightmare…
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Thank you! I wish it were not something so many experienced or recognized …
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Oh, great build up of tension, and then that final fearful sentence, left hanging like the moon itself. Excellent.
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Thank you, Sarah! You got the hanging bit right on!
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Chilling! I hope she can learn lucid dreaming, so the next time he shows up, she can throw him in a meat grinder, where he belongs.
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Yeah, that would be an EXCELLENT (dream) solution …
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Thank you, Na’ama. I’ve used variations of it in my own dreaming. It works.
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Yes, if one can introduce some element of control (over what happened, over how something ended, etc) it can help immensely. There are different ways to do so, of course, but lucid dreaming works for some, and that’s a great tool. 🙂
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🙂
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🙂 indeed!
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