Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Stinging Sleep






Many people know that I have a fear of wasps. If you ever want to see me get really nelly - watch me in a car where a wasp has flown in through the window. It isn't pretty - but probably hilarious - unless I'm driving and you're in the passenger seat. I feel for you, and hope you're right with the Lord.

Today has been a rough day thus far. I am out of sorts and anxious, feeling a bit faint and cold sweating, which this humidity is not helping. I don't think I'm ill. In fact, this is all due to a very poor night of sleep...insomnia mixed with many a dream of wasps - yellow jackets to be precise. As the day goes on, the dreams are becoming more and more faded. (Kind of like these jeans I keep wearing over and over, because I'm in between fat pants and less-fat pants, but that's another issue.) But one passage in last night's dream overtures has whittled its way into my conscious mind and left quite the imprint.

A wasp nest appeared in the kitchen, attached to the refrigerator. My mother looked at it calmly, coldly. She grabbed the circular hood of a cake tray and covered the nest. As if directed, the yellow jackets swarmed out of their little papery pocket-homes and filled the glass cover. She then looked over at the stove, and I noticed one of the electric burners was on high, showing its menacing orange-hot coil. And with a swift move, my mother dashed across the kitchen, and with the insect filled glass, covered the burner as though it was, itself, a cake. I realized then her intent was to burn the wasps to death. And they did. Burn. As their crystalline jail heated up, they began to scream. I heard them both outside and inside my head. They screamed and screamed like children being burned alive. Not adults. Children. Sad, scared children. Angry children. Children that might at some point reincarnate to seek revenge.

My mother simply watched. Still cold. Still calm. And all at once, the wasps exploded, their boiling entrails spraying on the side of the glass. And no more screaming. Silence. Complete, silence. As the sound of my own heartbeat threatened to overcome me, my mother turned and said, "Well, that worked." And she walked out of the room.

I looked back to the refrigerator. And out of a lonely compartment, a single surviving wasp crawled carefully out of the vespiary and flew up and away - too fast for me to follow its path. And I wondered, what might the wasp have planned for us?

I am haunted today. I hope it passes soon...




2 comments:

Mead said...

Oh my, but that's freaky.
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MORE!

Patrick Wohlmut said...

I've heard that Jung hypothesized that the only person we truly recognize in a dream is ourselves. The other people we think we recognize are actually just facets of ourselves. If I have it right.

Which part of yourself might be killing the wasps? And what might the wasps be?

Scary shit, man.