Planet Literature

Zacharias Mbizo’s Dream Worlds/10

Nocturnal Call

In your dream you see yourself getting out of bed and going to the window to get some fresh air. It suddenly felt unbearably stuffy and cramped in your bed, as if you were lying in a nutshell that enclosed you on all sides.

At the window you deeply suck in the fresh night air – but with the air a dark call also wafts over to you, echoing from the nearby forest.  It sounds melancholic and promising at the same time, something irresistible emanates from it. Is this the call of the forest witch who wants to make you forget that her cold embrace would make your blood freeze in your veins? Is it the desperate cry of a lost soul pleading for salvation? Or does the call only seem so gloomy to you because the eternally wailing night wind carries it to your ear?

Curious, you listen more closely. Anxiously you listen out into the night – but suddenly the call dies away, swallowed up by the silence of the cosmic darkness. Disappointed and relieved at the same time, you close the window and tell yourself that the call could impossibly have been meant for you.

When you want to go back to bed, a body is already lying on your side. But of course, you think, I’m already asleep, so how could I lie down? And yet you have the distinct feeling that someone else is stealing your sleep.

The next morning you feel as exhausted as after an arduous night hike. Furthermore, you are strangely reluctant to touch the newspaper. The call that reached your ear at night lives on in you as a dark premonition. You feel as if you had witnessed a crime that you yourself had committed, and as if all the newspapers had to report it as soon as you opened them.

Another wake-up call dream in The Hidden Chamber:

The Hidden Chamber, pp. 53 – 56

Picture: Dorothe Wouters (Darkmoon_Art): Foggy path in the forest (Pixabay)