I Wake Up Crying

Something is squirming in a large, square glass tank.

It's my bedroom, but not as I recognise it. A family's young boy has lived here in previous years, and the tank must be left from some pet he used to have. It's filled with soil and old leaves, piled in the corners. As I wonder what bugs must be living in it now, something white and tapeworm-like squirms under the dirt in the glow from my bedside lamps. I can see it only because it is up against the glass, but under the soil, like a cross section in a worm farm. My face is up against the glass.

I switch on the main light to get a better look, and with the shock of the sudden brightness, the creature wriggles violently. I realise it is much bigger than I originally thought; fleshy, pink and white.

I stagger backwards in fear and disgust, and a small snakes head appears coming out of the tank.

Someone has caught it by the head, and before I can say anything, decides to kill it.

Slit

The

Throat

S
L
O
W
L
Y
...


The snake's eyes glisten and look sad as its' life seeps out tiny drop by drop. There isn't much blood, it seems to take forever to die.

It is then we realise the story; the boy who lived here before was a horrible child, and burned his pet snake so that all but it's head remained with scales. It continued to live in hibernation here, slowly starving.




I wake up crying.







Fragments of another dream trickle back with the snake's demise.

I am watching a show on TV where two contestants must slit the throats of cattle to progress.

They can't do it properly, or quickly enough.

The camera pans from one contestant to the other, standing behind the animals in the gloomy farm stalls, holding their heads up so their necks are exposed.

Dark grey-brown animals, their faces look downy and softer than velvet.

Keeps panning.

Still not done.

Contestants laugh at their inability to perform.

Such slight, long cuts, one by one.

More panning.


I catch the look in the animals' eyes; increasing absence of something indescribably integral, drooping lids, wet.

And my heart wants to implode.