The Things of Dream and Myth

In the dark many monsters may hide
Angels and demons and things worse than either side
Stare out into the deep black
Once you’ve seen him you cannot go back.
What shape or size only a few know
And those few live where fewer can go.
But into dreams the nightmare can creep
And suck the dreamer down deep deep deep
He is older than thought, older than rhyme
Made, so they say, from the same stuff as time.
He breathe water air and fire when
He hunting emerges from his dark den
Like a spider he traps, like a cat stalks
Better than any hunter dare boast to talk
He knows every turn and shadow along the way
And far worse than that he knows his prey
He sniffs the air and tastes the scent
And slithers away hiding where he went
If ever he feels you seeing he
Better it had been you never be.
Those few aforementioned who slip away
Chant a mantra incessantly to keep him at bay
Does it work? Well, they live, although
Seemingly mad from the memories they know.
So stay away from Shadows, hide in the light
Stay away from the Dream Eater with all your might.

Joseph awoke with a start: it had almost gotten him that time. He was either lucky, or as good as Somnus said.

“Was it a baku?” asked Dreida.

“No, some other chimera. I had not seen it before, but…”

“But it was familiar, wasn’t it?” Somnus had been just out of Joseph’s sight. “As if you had always known it was there.”

“What was it Somnus? It did not seem to care that it was in my dream.”

“That is because you were not.”

Joseph was puzzled. He looked to Dreida, who turned her eyes down.

“Joseph, it is time you learned the truth. Dreams are not contained in your head. They are the landscape that the soul retreats to when it is time to create. We all visit the same realm, the same dimension. We rarely meet each other because so few of us are aware of the Dreamscape.”

“Wait, wait, so if that was actually a place, then that means...nightmares are real?” Joseph pulled the needle from his arm hastily. There were a few drops of the yellow drug left, but he was done for today.

“In a sense, of course. But more practically, some nightmares can do you real lasting harm. You are starting to gain the attention of a few. Which is why it is time for you to begin your training.”

Joseph sprung off the cot and made distance between himself and the two. He stirred up the dust on the floor and knocked over some empty bottles. Outside the broken third-floor window could be heard sirens.

“Woah, woah, woah, I mean I was all on board with your trippy philosophy but you want me to train? I come here to let the pressure off not improve my prospects.”

“No you come here to free your mind.”

“No, I come here to blast off.”

“Why morpheus then? Why not heroin or LSD? Other drugs are cheaper, easier to get.”

“Then I should not have a problem finding a new favorite vice.” Joseph had put his coat on. He moved to the door.

“Those other chemicals will kill your dreams, Joseph.”

The young man hesitated. He was torn between two worlds. Couldn’t hurt to learn. “This training, what is it, and what is it for?”

“Meditation, fasting, and martial arts. To fight the nightmares of humanity.”

“I suppose you are the last of an ancient order dedicated to fighting the darkness, eh?”

“I am.”

Somnus was not phased by his sarcasm, which gave Joseph pause. Dreida was still silent and watched him intently from her seat on his cot. For a second Joseph wavered. Intrigue was strong in his curious mind. But pride was stronger, and he knew the acceptable response was to scorn the proposal as silly.

“Get some air, guys, you must be high on your own supply.”

The junkie walked away from the guru. Until he felt the urge for the next hit.

Nature builds with Icy Snow
And forces dark knit blood and bone
This smith uses all he has and can ever know
To smelt nightmare
No sound his great tools make
Of all your fears the darkest he take
The burning product quenched in blood-red lake
A fresh nightmare
Motion less than he need be
Hearing all and minding not the scream
Of any his hundred hands force nightly to see
The bare nightmare
So run you far, run you fast
He is quick despite his putrid fat
You a mouse to his blind idiot giant cat
In webbed nightmare
He giggle as he search you to find
To best him beware lest you uncover your mind
And he seeping creeping filth that has aged since before time
Yet more nightmare
He is an old thing from long ago
What he is, and wants, I don’t know
For what can I of such things show.
He lives in thought and shadows
He sees nothing but all he knows
Is how to twist your memory in blackest night.
Survive his attention
Take not his direction
Best not to speak with the Dream Smith.
Not because he speaks naught but lies
But because his words
Are your words
Ripped they are from where you have hidden them.
Echoes of what you may have felt
Coated in filth and sent back you haunt
The Dreamsmith beware.

Joseph roared as he came out of the dream. He sat up and turned to the side and threw up.

“Well, did you talk to him?”

“Yeah,” Joseph wiped the bile from his mouth, “And now I need a shower.” Dreida wiped a cool towel over his face and shoulders.

“Did he touch you?” Somnus drew back, ready to strike, motioning to the girl to move away.

“No he didn’t. What, you were going to shoot me?”

“I told you, his rot can’t cross over. We cannot risk it.”

“I didn’t need to touch him. His words, they were my words, but coated in his slime. It felt like I had to eat them…”

“But you are back, and seem to be intact.” Somnus betrayed a hint, a smidgen, of concerned relief. “Did you learn what we needed to know?”

Joseph stood, and stretched. The raw tattoos on his bare torso resisted his motion. He breathed deeply with his eyes closed. He was silent for a few moments. Living in his own thoughts.

“Well?” Somnus asked. There was something odd in his voice. There was hope.

Joseph smiled, and opened his eyes. They glowed yellow.

Not all laughter is joyous
As one who has heard her cackle will know
Not all skin is porous
As one who embraced by her may show.
Spiked hide
Devil Eyes
Twisted Face and crooked smile
Only one so horrid as she and as mean
Could possibly be the weaver of dream
Working aside the smith
With the product he spew
She tells a tale long of myth
And spins us in old lie anew
My warnings are as always
Avoid, look away, trade not
With the one whose paths stray
But ill tactics against a thought
If you notice her near
Already caught are you, I fear
In the shadowy steel web
of the dream weaver’s bed
Running pointless, battle useless
Suffer what you must
And never again your own dreams trust.

The line between waking and dream was meaningless now that even the weaver obeyed him. Joseph was far more powerful than the things that kept the real world and the dream plane apart.

“Joseph, we need to slow down, recalibrate. Our drug isn’t scaling well with what you are doing.” Somnus was afraid. Joseph could feel it.

“Joey, please, let me help you again,” Dreida had something other than fear in her voice. Joseph did not know what it was, sounded odd,felt foreign. Was it...love?

No. He could not allow this. Could not be stopped, not when he was this close.

“Joseph, stop this!” It was the last thing Somnus said that Joseph heard. Dreida said nothing, pleading with Joseph with her eyes and her thoughts, not for her life, but for his.

Joseph left them after he killed her. He had just a few more things left to do.

I have seen the wall between this world and that
It was tall and thick to keep us two away
But I studied worked and prayed as I journeyed
Long I laboured across borders
Before this was my home I had to lose that one
And homeless, not allowed to be either here or there
The helpers said I had too much,
The rulers said I had not nearly enough
So my own help I had to take
And my own rules I had to make.
You did not call to me
Hiding you were not
And why would you either do?
You are perfect and whole as a number
I am weak and little as my flesh attested.
But all that I put away to speak with you
And speaking hearing
Hearing seeing
Seeing having
I am you and We
Are to forever be
the King of Dream