I am being chased, tracked, pursued and even worse, forced to follow where I’m led.  Mysterious and dangerous as this sounds, while true, nothing close to a Ludlum novel.  As stated earlier, I don’t see men at the edge of vision but I do sense a presence at perception’s periphery.

Dreams, archaic research left in places it shouldn’t, synchronous concepts played out on cable documentaries, this is the core of my paranoia.  But as yet no David Warner, or Morgan Freeman charged with my torture have shown themselves.

 Last night I woke every hour on the hour.  And every time I fell back to sleep, the same dream continued in my head like a bad horror film interminably looped in some East Village art house.  Every version of the dream started the same.  I stood at the base of a grassy hill.  This hill towered above and at its apex, someone stood facing away into the wind.

I always called out but the figure never responded.  Every time I would dutifully climb that hill.  It was difficult with rocks sticking out at odd angles or loose gravel under foot.  The higher I climbed the steeper the pitch.  Once summitted, I would speak again to the figure.  He remained facing away, completely unaware of my presence.  I would then walk up, turn him around to face me.  Each time I faced myself.

JEKYLL

Me … except the eyes, they were black as coal and completely unaware of my presence.  And each time, I would back away in horror only to fall down the hill.   Waking and gasping for air I would be unable to untangle myself from the bed sheets.  I couldn’t stop the dreams recurring theme because an unseen weight secured me to my pillows.  I’d toss a bit but always fell back to sleep only to re-live the dream once more.

Then, somewhere between five or six in the morning the dream changed.  Again I was at the bottom of the grassy hill.  Again, the figure on top and I obediently climbed. This time cresting the hill I saw the figure was different.  He was a child.  I didn’t bother calling just spun him around.

It was Oliver that stared back at me.  He looked up; eyes blue with a tinge of green and clear as mountain water.  We searched each other’s face for answers neither had questions for.  Then, without a hint of malice, this little boy leapt, huge canine teeth breaking from his gums, and began devouring me.  It was neither painful nor terrifying just this sense of bits and pieces of me dissappearing.

When the child was done, he wiped his face and took up his vigil once more.  There was nothing of me left, not even bones but still I had presence.   And in this ethereal existence, I rose.  I rose from the ground and floated into the air.   When my ascent was complete, I looked out over hill after hill after grassy hill.  Each topped by a little boy.  The first was Oliver.  The next, too was Oliver.  I floated over figure after figure, all Oliver until I reached one last, lone form.  It was me again with eyes so black, they sucked me in.  Literally, this figure made in my image became a new body for me to look out at the world from.

I turned to view the long line of Oliver’s I’d passed and in the distance I saw a glow emitting from the very first, the original.

Of course I woke then.  This time, I was able to get out of bed.  In the bathroom, staring back at me from the mirror, my eyes were now my own.  No pools of inky black.

Why the dreams?  Implications?  It seems I should understand yet like steam from a kettle, meaning slips through my grasp leaving a boiled barren residue at the bottom of my psyche.