Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Always Up, Never Down

I dreamt about zombies last night. (How long has it been? A year? Two years? Maybe even three? Not long enough; I still sleep with the machete next to the door, just in case.)

It's my bedroom, but isn't. Two windows, a bed, dressers - everything's familiar but never seen before. Dark, but not night - the gray-black-blue of storms turning day into twilight, panic and horror lingering in the static, stagnant air.

I'm getting my things together, essential things, things to carry me over for the next few days. (I'm always getting my things, always packing, rushed, for something at somewhere. Last time it was a determent camp, and the Nazi officer with a heart of gold gave me a minute longer than he should of. I ultimately decided, after glancing at his sympathetic, handsome face, that the only thing I really needed was my year's supply of birth control. <- YOU CAN LAUGH, FUCK, //I// DID AFTER WAKING UP.)

GET TO THE ROOF, GET TO THE ROOF, GET TO THE ROOF thunders through my racing heart. My escape plan for these situations never changes, regardless of dream or setting - always up, never down. (OH MY GOD THE WINDOWS ARE OPEN!) (Never mind, never mind you've got time - be quick, be smart, have a plan before you execute it. Always be prepared, always have a plan; people who live have a plan.)

Sharp, quick movements cut through the hanging air. Adrenaline's pulsating, but I'm not blindly panicked. I'm driven to survive, but I'm in control, I know what I'm doing and what to do. (Been here before, haven't we?) I slice open the silent room with elbows - stretching, lunging, snatching. My body's on autopilot. It works with and separately from my rushing thoughts, both entities in synch but executing different instincts.

GET THE AMBER NECKLACE, GET THE AMBER NECKLACE, GET THE AMBER NECKLACE. For a split second I'm suspended in air, a ballerina with strings, body contorted and leaning forward over a partially opened drawer as a streak of silver tears through the darkened room. A flash of metal, a flash of resin - it's as if the sun splits opens the oppressive sky and the hand of God reaches down and breathes on my necklace; for a moment everything shines, everything glitters as improbable light reflects off the metal.

(I'm Lara Croft, I'm Indiana Jones, I'm Prometheus with God's treasure dangling in my hand.)

It's the sound of a plane free falling without the noise. It's the thundering sensation of a train barreling towards you without the trembling earthquakes. The world stops and you exist in a timeless vacuum where everything's blanketed with a deep, choking silence. You feel it in your blood, you feel it down your spine, you feel it brush against your hair follicles. Before you know, you know.

WINDOWS, WINDOWS, WINDOWS, but it's already too late. The necklace, the slinky, silver cord wrapped around my fingers as the chunk of amber shakes like a nervous pendulum, flies through the air like a mace, colliding with glass as I spin around. The wooden frame of the window rattles like the scaffolding of a guillotine as it comes crashing down.

(TOO LATE, TOO LATE, TOO LATE, TOO LATE...)

She's blind but Her dead eyes see. The only thing not frozen in the room is my amber pendant, swinging wildly from side to side as my lungs deflate and I hold my breath. (The burglar's been caught, caught stealing her own things.) She stares forward, transfixed, a long layer of hair overlapping a long layer of clothing. A girl, a child, a ghost, an insatiable monster who's disrupted my plan(s).

(TOO LATE, TOO LATE, TOO LATE, TOO LATE...)

Killing comes easy when you've battled zombies all of your life. (I was four, or five, the first time they came, and I made the mistake of hiding in the basement - something I've never repeated again, not in any dream or nightmare.) Everything stops, everything screeches to a deafening halt. I think I'm still breathing; I'm still alive. Muscles tense and body prepared my outstretched fingers trail over the curve of something cylinder - an empty wine bottle? a broken off chair leg? - until my warm, sweaty fingers wrap around the cool surface and grip it tightly against my clammy palm.

Now She sees me. I squeeze the weapon in my hand, the weight and density reassuring. It isn't brittle, it isn't weak - it's solid, hard, unforgiving. It's an extension of me, unafraid, knowing its purpose. (GET TO THE ROOF, GET TO THE ROOF, GET TO THE ROOF...) It only takes Her one ninety degree turn until we're face to face. The battle of life versus death sets up in a tiny, nondescript bedroom, both sides driven by a biological urge to survive, to keep going.

It's that long second before the explosion, when air and being and everything you know and fear and hate and love is drawn in with one final cosmic inhalation. There isn't anything else except us and this moment that feels like eternity. It's war and the solider awakens; purpose replaces fear, panic and uncertainty. My diaphragm expands as my chest swells, a long, deep breath grounds me as the last of my mental armor is locked into place.

A surge of martial excitement ricochets through my poised body and I feel the roar - that Aries, earth shaking battle cry of a lion bellow - bolt through me like a full body orgasm as the last remnants of fear collapse beneath the biblical sound. (I WILL CRUSH YOU, I WILL DEFEAT YOU, YOU WILL BREAK BENEATH THE SOLES OF MY CALLOUSED FEET, YOU WILL LIE DEFEATED, BROKEN, A TESTAMENT TO MY STRENGTH AND COURAGE. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT DUST AND WEAKNESS AND I WILL VICTORIOUSLY OVERCOME.)

I woke up just as Italics was coming to bed, a split second before my lion's roar of goading defiance. No battle this time, no struggle or fight for survival. But they'll be back; the only thing as old as me is Them, and we've been at war since before I could remember. (ALWAYS UP, NEVER DOWN.)