Sweven

27th

What woke me? Ears strain. Heart shudders. Cast off ancient sheets. Rise. This is a long lost home. Stained by shivering shades of black and blue, it presses. Silence is pristine. The space is so soft, ominous, like a dream. But it is not. I am home. I am alone. Where are they? From bedroom to kitchen to livingroom roam on feet that wish to falter.

A scream. A blur. I'm flung to the floor. Fists slam straight into my face, "You left me! It's your fault! You left me! It's your fault!" chants a shadow puppet brother. But his words are weightless. His fists are phantoms. I laugh around his fury..."Dreaming!"

Lucid will forces the rage swept shadow to rise. Hold it high. It floats, shadow amid shadow, twisting, glitching, flailing. Brother shakes the world with a scream.

I stand. "No fighting. There are other things to do in dreams. And besides, you left us..."

He shrieks, "Your fault. Family left me. Left me. Your fault!"

"I wasn't the one abusing his wife and ki..."

"Your fault!" he screams with demon rage. A flurry of fists rips my way.

I remain untouched on several levels. Walk away? Will him away? Warp to another dream? No. He will see any retreat as weakness, an invitation to stay an haunt. I tire of being haunted. With frightening calm, reach into my brother's shadow and grip his living spine. Rip it out. Crush it to the floor. The rest of his shadow follows, drifting strings of twitching tendons. They fade into nevermore.

Still haunting the halls of my own youth, search shadows for a sign. Nothing. Now what? A reality check strengthens my light. I should exorcise this place. The final ghost to be banished will be mine. But first, the final room. Mind is shining. Heart is stone. Spirit is steel. All demons will be undone... but in this room there stand none.

Instead, upon my mother's bed, sits a mountain of of man, his flesh a gallery of bright, tribal tattoos. He speaks softly, swiftly, in tongues my mind can not unwind. Sit and listen. Ever so slowly I think I can nearly hear his truth...