Have You Ever Seen Yourself Asleep?

Prologue: "Close the damn window", mom yelled at us before we all went to the bed. My brother went into the kitchen and closed the window. Although she is a kind person, I and my siblings don't have the nerve to disobey her direct orders.

"Something is hurting me. I shouldn't be here. What is happening?" 

And suddenly, my eyes were wide open. It was pitch dark, yet I realized that I fell asleep with headphones around my neck. Although I was on my bed, I couldn't shake the feeling of being tired from a long journey. As a habit I checked my phone; it was 3.10 of the morning. 

It was my third night of waking up sweaty and thirsty at the same time. So, while cursing my exaggerated dreaming abilities, I headed towards the kitchen. I was stressing my memory to recall what happened and what woke me up so late at night. I reached into the kitchen, filled the glass with water, and sat in the window. 

Back then, we lived on the first floor with the kitchen facing the main street. I always enjoyed seating at the kitchen window and watch the road down running at its pace. It gave me a feeling of being a witness to this majestic chaos around me. Every day, I watched hundreds passing by with thousands of expressions on their faces. Most times these faces were confused; many times they were numb and very rarely, I got a glimpse of happy faces. 

I poured myself a glass of water. When the water touched my dry tongue, I wondered about all the missing faces.

‘Where they are now?’

There was no sign of my thousand faces. Just long-empty-black-road that felt like some deserted red carpet of a gala. It was not just me who was idle that night. My majestic chaos was idle at that night. The puddle rain created in the morning lying sluggishly reflecting the dull-orange street lamps. Although I lived in that flat for more than a year, I never saw the road at such late hours. 

Then, it all happened swiftly. Mechanically I took a lemon and threw it out of the window. While that tiny ball wall tumbling down, the dream that woke me up came to me…

I was at the top of a shady building. The sky was the worst shade of blue you could imagine like someone mixed all the blues, greens, and greys just to create something ominous. I remembered the darkness. I remembered two hands coming for me... Those malicious hands that threw me over the edge... 

Just a whim of this dream petrified my core. The menacing memory of that dream reminded me of the struggles I made to save myself from crashing on the ground.

With every passing second, the land was coming closer. I was had to do something. I had to hold on to something, that futile scuffle of finding something solid, something that I can hold onto. 

Then there were those malicious hands looking at me from the roof, telling me that I am unwanted there. I felt the friction of air against my skin, against my entire body. Then, there was the wham of me hitting the ground and opening my eyes in my bed. 

Although I came back, the fear never left me. 

'Anyways' 

I told myself, as this wasn't the first time I dreamed of falling from the height. Now, the glass was empty, the lemon was on the ground and the puddle was still idle, so I headed for my bed. At the door of my bedroom, my heart sunk into an abyss... 

I saw myself asleep! 

IT was there, seating beside my sleeping head. IT was those sinister hands, but this time it came with the rest of the body, or whatever the rest of the mass it had. IT was bad, dark, and smelled rancid like death. Black is my favorite color, but I never imagined it in that shade. 

My heart started pounding in my ribcage. What do I do?  Where do I go? I tried to scream but my voice betrayed me big time. IT's darkness was trying to swamp me and then again there were those malicious hands trying to wrap me and drag me to a place which my conscience was horrified to imagine. 

I was struggling to breathe, to scream but my all efforts were in vain. I wanted to call my dad and beg him to take me away. Then the darkness came along with that foul odor of someone who was never alive. The struggle again struggles to breathe and struggles to escape from that sinister laugh... 

Suddenly I opened my eyes and saw my mon knelt on my face. As she woke me up, she asked me the reason behind my loud cries. I couldn't say anything because my throat was hurting as I screamed for hours. 

What do I say?

'I saw myself asleep!' 

No, I couldn't say those words. For the first time in life, I had everything to say but the words betrayed me. 

"I had a bad dream."

I asked my mom for a glass of water. She went to the kitchen to fetch water and a moment later I heard her voice... 

"Why the window is open?"