Crème and Dream

I had a dream the other night. It was awful and yet intriguing at the same time. I woke with a cold sweat at the reality of it all. You’re gonna think and say that I am making this all up, but I am not. Did I eat something strange before bed? You may ask, but I tell you it was nothing out of the ordinary: Battery acid and Coconuts—Ha ha—but seriously, it was quite the real dream and I woke and began to write it down so I wouldn’t forget.

I was in front of a door. It was one of those thin doors ready to splinter ones hands if they reached up to knock on it. The number 78 on the door was hanging obliquely. The numbers themselves looked to be once white, but now they had faded quite a bit and the color was a soiled grey tone. I raised my fist to the door, as if to knock, but I noticed in my hand there was a key. Was this my room? I couldn’t be sure. I had to knock, and so, I did. The sound was hollow and plastic. I believed if I had knocked any harder, my hand would have gone through the wood. I looked at my knuckles; there were little chips of green paint upon them from the wood. No one answered the door. I knocked again. I did the silent count in my head: one—one-thousand… two—one-thousand… three—one-thousand… four… five… And still no one answered the door. I heard no movement on the other side. One last time, as if to not believe the key could possibly fit for the door, I knocked again. Then, if still no one answered, I would try the key. After my silent count again, I resigned and shoved the key into the lock. To my amusement and surprise it fit! I turned the key and the locking mechanism inside the door grinded a bit but it clicked a loud eerie click in the empty hallway. I still did not turn the knob. Something told me in the back of my mind, on the nape of my neck where hairs began to stand, not to go in there. Something told me that I would regret going into a foreign place such as this. I looked up and down the long stretch of hallway. It was empty. There were just similar doors on both sides of the hall stretching about fifty feet or so. The carpet was a worn green ugly flowering design that reminded me of my grandmother’s old tattered couch from her basement. The walls were similarly decked out in the same fashion, with old flickering lamps giving off a pale yellow radiance every ten feet. The door I was standing in front of, good ole number slantwise 78 was somehow in the shadows of the two wall lights on either side. I paused, took a deep breath, like a breath a diver takes before jumping off the high dive, and turned the knob.
After I was in, I took a minute to soak up my surroundings. There was one small window with blinds covering them. A closer look told me they hadn’t been dusted for years. There was a single bed with no coverings, just two plain mattresses alone on a stand. There was a rather large brown spot lying directly in the center. My eyes disgusted with the possibilities the stain presented and I immediately focused elsewhere. There next to the bed was a nightstand made of empty milk carton carriers. You know, like the kind you see stacked up in the back of a grocery store. They are usually stacked next to the dumpster or something. These crates were marked Updike's Dairy in bold letters up and down each side. Upon the nightstand was a deep glass ashtray full of previously spent cigarettes. The walls again were of that same ugly flowering pattern as in the hallway, as was the floor. This floor was pot marked with cigarette burns and the room smelled of those long since extinguished smokes. My eyes rose from the floor to the ceiling. The ceiling plaster was bubbling in many places from the humidity in the room. Near the corner, one of the bubbles was quite large and cracked down the middle, where a hole was beginning to form. And sure enough, on the floor, were its missing pieces. That was it. I did a pirouette, to make sure, and then I saw a slightly ajar door. There was no light emanating from the room but just to be certain I called out in an uncertain voice, “Hello?”
No one answered. I crossed to the door. My feet began to drag upon the carpet reluctantly obeying the commands to draw near the door. Again the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I shivered. In that hot, hot room, I shivered. Like the ghost of some long lost soul had touched my spine, a chill shot through my body, releasing the Goosebump Army to march over my skin. I reached for the door and *ZAP!*
“Son-of-a!—God damned!—carpet!—stupid!—fucking physics...!”
I chuckled to myself over my jumpiness and overreacting. I grabbed the doorknob again this time with much force and gusto, pushing it open wide, and looked in. It was the bathroom. A strong foul odor reached my nostrils immediately. Automatically, I cringed back for a second. My hand went straight to my mouth and nose to try and stop me from gagging. One dry heave later, I calmed down and the overwhelming stench of stale urine and feces subsided substantially. I sighed and flicked on the light switch. The light flickered on and off for a second or two from a small light bulb hanging from a wire down from the ceiling, then popped on for good. It gave off a high pitch buzz that reverberated around the tiled bathroom. I looked to the toilet. If that is what it could be called? It was more or less like the kind of toilets one would see in a prison cell, but not an American prison cell, but a Columbian prison cell. The origin of the stench could be seen all over the floor and seat. There was a small bath basin, but it didn’t look like it was much use, as it was cracked down the middle and sides. The walls were all completely tiled, except a few places where they were missing. Mostly they were gone along the corner in which the tub was placed. There were water stains both in the sheetrock and the ceiling above. My attention was drawn away from the tub suddenly when I noticed movement in the corner of my eye. Quickly I shifted to my right to find the causation of the movement. I yelped out sharply and my heart did a double jump as I found a man looking back at me. I sighed. It was only my reflection staring back at me through a filmy mirrored medicine cabinet. Underneath was a lone one faucet sink hanging against the wall. Two thin wires connected the basin to the floor, and the drainage pipe was clearly visible underneath as it dipped down into its usual U form.
I shifted my weight and slowly walked toward the man in the mirror. The man was smiling. It kind of gave me another start. I was smiling? Why? It was probably because I felt dumb.
I reached up slowly to the medicine cabinet to see what was in there. You know what they say about this; that you could always tell all about a person by searching through their medicine cabinet. As I began to realize this, I reluctantly withdrew my hand. What the hell couldn’t I already tell about the person who lived here, who used this bathroom, from when I first opened the door and smelled that awful smell? Hell, from the first moment I stepped into the efficiency? I pulled my hand away and instead placed it upon the sink. In an automatic fashion, my left hand reached up and put itself upon the other side. It felt natural. I leaned into the mirror to see myself a bit better.
My eyes appeared to be bloodshot and sunken deep into their respective sockets. I reached up right under them and felt the tender puffiness above my cheeks. All of a sudden it felt like I knew somehow that I hadn’t slept in weeks. Hell, the way I looked, it could have been years. I reached up to brush my bangs (do boys have bangs? I dunno) off my forehead. When I pulled my fingers down I noticed I had more than a few brown strands still clenched in between my fingers. Shocked, I simply stared in disbelief at the puff of hair in my hands. Anger began to well up with inside of me and I reached up again. I clasped the top of my hair to give a tug, it had to be a fluke, but sure enough, a bunch of hair is what I got remaining in my fist as I pulled it down in front of my face. I was terrified, and yet still unable to stop myself from repeating the process, my hand kept going back up top there and bringing back more and more hair. All the while I watched it happen in the mirror. My eyes were round as saucers. Every time I grabbed at the top of my head, more and more hair came out in my right hand. Pretty soon the left hand got in on the action. You’re missing out left, jump right on in—the water’s fine! Then I noticed I was needing no hands at all as the hair began to fall out on it’s own. It began to rain down in front of my eyes. I watched it fall, like it was in slow motion. Horror had replaced my scared look long ago, but I couldn’t do anything but look at my stupid, balding rapidly face before me. When the last of the hairs fell lightly to the sink, which was now quite full of sandy brown hairs, I looked up into the bald sad self in the mirror and saw one lone hair sitting smugly left.
In shock, I simply just stared at that face before me not believing it was mine. I delicately moved my right hand back up to where my hair was before and now felt the smooth skin that was there now. This couldn’t really be happening could it? Immediately my hands reached into the sink to grab at the hair, to try and shove it back into my head if necessary. But as soon as the dive toward the sink began, the urge subsided and the hands came to a rest at the sides of the sink again. What was I going to do now? Hair just doesn’t fall out like that, does it? I reached up to pull out the last hair in resignation, but as I pulled, the hair wouldn’t budge. One fucking hair left! I guessed there was nothing to do now but either shave it off or grow it long and brush it to the side. Yes, one giant lone hair comb-over. That’s what I’d do. I began to laugh maniacally, but the laughter quickly as it sprang turned into a silent sob. I cried feeling helpless and lost in that foreign bathroom for many minutes, falling into a deep self-piteous conjuncture.
I raged briefly, clenched my eyes shut, and punched the bald face in the mirror. When I opened my eyes up again the mirror had a big spider-web crack in it now. I looked down to the hand that punched the mirror, though the skin had been broken, there was no blood coming from my knuckles. My eyes slowly drifted away from my hands in shock back up to the mirror. My eyes were worse now, bloodshot as ever. It looked like I had now been on a month long drinking binge. They were irritating the hell out of me. The itch felt like it was going to burn my face off if I didn't do anything to stop it. I twisted the faucet knob and a burping, grating noise began to emanate from within the walls. Instead of clear water gushing out, a mucky foul brown goop began to drip from the faucet. Surprise, surprise!
I started to rub my eyes and cheeks gently. The more I rubbed the worse the irritation became, but I insisted that rubbing them now was the only option I had left. And so I rubbed, and rubbed, and rubbed, till my face felt raw. When I finally let my hands fall from their new scratching post, I realized that they were not without holding something. It happened to be a piece of my left cheek, which the rest was sagging upon my chin. I let the piece fall from my hands and retched into the sink. The foul was horrible, but quite pleasant next to the one coming from the toilet next to me.
What’s happening to me? Could it be this place, the smell? Is it so bad that it is pealing away my skin? What’s happening to me? I cried out in alarm as I looked back into to the mirror as if to verify what I previously saw. No justification needed, it was flapping against my chin alright. I could feel it there as I raised my head to the mirror, but just the same I looked. I expected to find blood or gore gushing out of the wound, but there was none. Instead, underneath I saw something scarier. Instead of blood flowing out the open wound, underneath, there was more flesh. It was not pink or even a peach-ish tone as my skin color was, but it was flesh none the less. A little more than freaked out, but curious still, I looked closer within the spider-webbed echo of myself. It looked like my face was no longer my face but a weird fleshy mask over my face. I began to tear at my skin psychotically. It was like an old Mission Impossible scene, bad special effects and all; I tore away my face and out came a surprising new one. But unlike in Mission Impossible, the new face was not of one I knew (or of the protagonist). Instead, in the filmy cracked mirror, I stared back at a completely foreign face. A face as foreign as this room, and yet somewhat a familiar hint behind it too.
The face was old and wrinkled. So much so that I couldn’t tell where one wrinkle began and another ended. There were large brown liver-spots covering my temples all the way down to my neck. I was still bald (with the exception of that one hair) and somehow I didn’t seem to mind anymore. At least not being an old man anyway. Besides, if I looked this disgusting all the time, why the hell should I care if I was bald or not? I couldn’t think of any answer to that.
I opened my mouth and it too had changed. Changed from the relatively off-white (somewhat nicotine-stained) teeth with pink gums I was used to seeing to this new (or old rather) maw with long stretched teeth high into the gum lines, blackened by heavy cavities and severe gingivitis. I reached up and pulled one of the teeth out easily and dropped in casually into the sink and shrugged. It would figure that it would be that way. Not caving into the urge to pull them all out like the hair and face, I placed my hands back at the side of the sink and gripped it firmly. My knuckles began to turn white and started shaking as I grasped onto the porcelain.
I looked to the mirror again I came to the sudden realization that this room wasn’t foreign anymore. It was my room, my bed, my ashtray full cigarettes, my stains, my mess, and worse yet my stench. Then as my upside-down world began to shift, to stabilize (if that is what you can call it), I remembered that the medicine cabinet in front of me was also mine. I reached out my hand and slowly pulled the cracked mirror toward me. I totally expected tons and tons of prescription drugs from within, but only one item was there. This singular item was a tube of some sort or another. I couldn’t see the label as it was facing around the other way. I turned it around and the label gave me another shock. It said Aging-Reversal Crème. Excitedly, I fumbled with the crème and felt a twang of panic mixed with anticipation in my heart. My hands, which shook all by themselves now, were shaking so uncontrollably that the tube slipped from my hands and I saw it flip over and over again in the air. Time seemed to slow to a halt; the tube flew in slow motion before my eyes. Even though I felt in real time, I could do nothing from catching up with the tube. I stood silently in horror as I watched it fly. Dread sank in immediately as I guessed and saw where the tube’s destination was heading.
I was right, and another twang pained through my so soul shooting a sudden fear that I could never retrieve it now. I would be stuck like this forever! I needed that tube! Even if it didn’t restore me to my former self, the hope that it could lived within that very tube. Of course there was nothing else like it in the world. I needed that tube, and only that tube could work; only that tube would do. There was a small splush and gloop as the crème hit the water.
I rushed over to the toilet as fast as I could. The freeze time was over and I peered over the edge of foul smelling bowl and found that the toilet hadn’t been flushed in ages. Maybe it never had. I cringed and threw up unintentionally in the bowl. Oh great! Now I have that to dig through as well. Dignity wouldn’t let me put my hand in that toilet, no matter what I looked or felt like. No matter if I was old now and my bones frail. I couldn’t reach into that bowl! For Dignity’s sake, I just couldn’t. Yet, as the internal struggle had only just begun (my head began to have a dull ache), I rebutted myself. If this was indeed my body, room, mess, stain, and stench, then I had no dignity left. So Why not just reach my hand in there and get the crème? Somehow, I just knew, don’t ask me how, but just as I knew that the room was mine now, I knew I would never be able to ever leave again without that crème. It was either put the arm in and escape back within my old body, or stay here and rot in my own stench. My head began to hurt worse, and the struggle seemed to be battling within my very chest. I decided and threw my arm down into the bowl. I won’t go into detail of how nasty it was; I’ll let your own imagination take over on that. But let me say this, it was the worst feeling I had every known in my existence. But after a moment (the longest moment in my life) I pulled out the tube and again threw up. This time I missed the bowl all together. But I didn’t care. Greedily, I flipped the top and made ready to push the paste into my clean hand (no time to wash and no water to clean). But almost as soon as I started to push, a great pain started to attack me from within my chest. I grasped at my chest with the tube in hand and glanced down. My hand was too now wrinkled and showing deep blue veins. I fell over backwards and smacked the back of my head upon the crusty linoleum floor. As I started to blacking out, I knew at once, this time I wouldn’t wake up. No, I wouldn’t be able to apply the crème. I was dying. I was dead. I was too late.


Actually, that is the end. Well, at least for right now. And actually, this wasn’t really a dream I had, so don’t analyze it or anything. No it was an image that had come to me as I was working this morning. A sick image yes, especially while working, but I thought the idea of a man seeing himself in the mirror disintegrate before his eyes was fascinating. The rest of the story kinda just appeared as I sat down to write about it tonight. So again, not a dream, but an attempt to get back in the writing game and practice a bit before school starts again next week. Well, it’s late and I am tired of sharin’.
Peace out peoples,
-sib-