Daymares 7

Thick like syrup gone stale on the plate.  I can feel my feet sticking.  I can FEEL my feet.  The bubble of joy that rises up threatens to overflow into giggles. I clap my hand to my mouth to trap them, and stop there, amazed that I am mobile enough to do this.  The simple things seem to be the most befuddling, feet, hands, giggling.  What must it have been like before? Before I was put into the room?

My eyes are adjusting to this space now.  So very different from where I left, yet happily so very different from my room. It is hazed with odd shades of green, flecked with browns and little stripes of what could be grey or possibly even blue.  The occasional flash of brillance flickers catching me from the side and blinding me as if casually reminding me that "there is more than meets the eye" here.

I stagger-start-step in the syrup that binds me up-right.  This place is dense with scent. It smells in one moment like bergamot laced with vanilla, cinnamon and cardoman which brings a tiger to mind.  I have a sudden spark of memory - kitchen windows, light from the french doors and plants spilling from their pots. A box of Bengal Spice tea on sits on the edge of the light pine table and a\ I have a feeling that comes as close to contentment as I can recall.  It flashes past as the scent changes, becoming strong with cumin and black pepper.  I pull back.  I have never liked black pepper.  It appears I have not grown fond of it here either.

I snap-and-pop to the side wishing I had figured out the way to move silkily through this goop and find suddenly that I can.  It is still thick as mollasses in winter, yet now it has grown ankle deep and holds me upright like stout boots as I ski through it rather than pull at it to move.  Would that the rest of my existence would modify itself so readily to my wishes.

I move about scenting after the tiger's tea again, but find myself led along a trail of lemon grass, Greek seasoning, soy and garlic, though fresh basil and oregano, to crushed rosemary and on toward dried lavendar and rosehips.  Each lovely in its way, and yet none quite as fabulous as that kiss of vanilla and cardoman that held the tiger's visage.

The flickers of light begin to persist in attacking my pupils. At last I give way in a patch of green flecked brown, striated with enough of that greyed blue that it would defy most anyone to define a color for it.   It is a place so full of colors that it defies color.  I am entranced.  At last the tiger-tea scent settles around me again as I close my eyes to shut out the daggers of light that keep slicing through the comfort of this place.  I can only hope that I will remain with it or that it will remain with me as I block out the shoots of light.  If nothing else I have found a bit of comfort here.  With something so rare, who am I to begrudge its loss even if so briefly found? 

Perhaps in its brevity lies my best chance to keep it to myself. When the blades return, as I assume they must, this small piece of me can only be but a tiny sliver.  Perhaps it will be among the last to go?  That is assuming that this is real.  And of course I must always assume -- that I assume too much.  I  determine that I will not open my eyes unless I hear the blades.  For when I do, then I will know that this is only  daywalking and I belong solely to the nighmares that are the reality of my life.