Post by DiOGee on Nov 13, 2023 20:12:33 GMT -5
"Next"
Everything was white. It was so bright that it was hard to make anything out. The ground under me felt soft and I saw nothing but clouds and a horizon. The heck was going on?
"Next in line!"
I snap to my right to see a ticket booth. The man inside wore white and had.. A halo hovering over his head? What was going on? I didn't see anyone else so next in line must have been me. Approaching the booth, the man greets me with a smile and a nod. "Name?"
"Jason."
"Full name please.." He was writing some stuff down with a feathered pen. What was my name? It seemed foggy to me even to find that information. Finally as it came to me, I said it as if questioning if that was the right name.
"Jason Cashe?"
"Cashe.. Cashe.. How do you spell that?" He gives me a look to confirm.
"C-A-S-H-E"
"Ahhhh yes.. Jason Andrew Cashe? Yup, I got you here. Let's see.."
Was this really what it seemed to be? Looking past the ticket booth, I found glowing golden gates. It sure seemed to be what it looked like. Is this my own interpretation of Heaven? I wasn't a religious person so none of this made sense. I didn't belong here, that I felt and knew as a truth.
"You don't belong here."
I just said that to myself. Could he hear my inside voice? "No?" I asked. "Where do I belong?"
"Can you take two steps back please?"
"Umm.. Sure.." It was a weird request but I did so without hesitation.
"BREATHE!"
My chest gasped for air. It wasn't until that very moment that I realized I hadn't been breathing. The shot of air felt like my first breath and it felt so clean and filling in the soreness of my lungs. Everything went black as the floor under my feet fell out from under me..
…
…
…
I felt off. Fuzzy. Am I dead? Drugged? What is going on and why do I feel so weak? There was a sharp pain with every breath I tried to take but couldn't take a full one. I wasn't sure why but I could feel hands on me, against my face and midsection, against my chest that had a burning sensation that didn't feel like anything good.. Yet everything was dark. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear anything other than the struggles of my own gargling gasped attempts at breathing. These might be my last times having one, I might be dying.
Stop being so dramatic..” I heard the taunting whisper as I drifted to what seemed like death, that voice kept me in the game.
…
…
…
It took some doing but I forced my eyes open as much as I could. I wasn't dead but instead, I was inside of a room. A hospital maybe? There was a Doctor or at least some weirdo in a white coat and some scrubs. Maybe I'm in Mexico and I'm sitting in a tub of ice and just had my kidneys removed.. It was kind of cold. The Doctor was talking. His words take a minute to come through clearly, the room was blurry, he was blurry. Nothing was clear.
“His left lung has partially collapsed from the stabbing. It created a wound, what we call a sucking chest wound. Right now, there’s air and fluids trapped within his chest cavity and it’s keeping his lung from fully reinflating. We have to get that out.”
Was he talking about me?! I wanted to blurt out, raise hell and talk Poop but was unable. Unable to even move my head, I wanted to see who he was talking to.. My eyes felt like they were crossing the desert as dry as they were. I felt incapable of moving them or fully even opening them so, I barely saw her standing there as I drifted off to sleep. Really, I just noticed her eyebrows and in my head, I said her name. "Sloane."
.
..
…
"If you die, Wraith is going to do the eulogy." The male voice that whispered felt familiar. I could hear his words but was unable to open my eyes and see who it was. Was I in a coma? Please don't let this be a dream about the voice I recognized this to be. If Matt Knox was in my dreams, I was surely having a nightmare. He had that arrogant prick to his voice that was hardly mistaken. The kind of guy that creeps and weirdos would warn someone about..
"Would you leave him alone!" I recognized that voice as well. In the imagination of my dreamstate, I could almost see one voice as the devil on my shoulder which made the other voice.. An angel. I didn't deserve one of those.. I wanted to cry, to scream, to fight and felt so helpless to do any of it. I was tired.
~=~=~=~=~
Zzzz..
~=~=~=~=~
Waffle House? Do normal people dream about the Waffle House? I knew it was a dream because of a few things. I was assed out in a Hospital Gown and there was a booth filled with Midgets and a female Midget twerking on top of the table. I know for sure I have had that dream before.. So this was certainly a dream.
I could smell the fresh waffles being cooked in the kitchen. I could hear the chatter of conversation with the numerous people here to get a meal. It felt like I was really here and hell, maybe I could go for some waffles..
"... Can I have your autograph?"
Everything froze. I felt the chill dance up my open gown at the back, tickle my tushy and climb my spine. Every voice silenced as heads turned. Eyes stared. Slowly I turned around and there he was.
"You!"
"... Can I have a hug?" His head was down but he stood right out of arm's reach.
"Why I oughta!"
In honor of the Simpsons no longer using the Homer choking Bart spot. I felt this was a nice addition to the dream. I reached at him to wring his neck but we ended up embracing in a hug.. How did that happen? What is that smell? I was inhaling a scent coming from his shoulder as my face slid past it. I know that smell but for the life of me, I couldn't identify it.
”For the life of me..” I whispered in my mind. It reminded me of what was coming. It came. I felt the knife plunge into me just as it did the first time. I was ready for it. I didn't gasp out this time. I stepped back and looked down at the knife as I felt the struggle for breath hit me just as it did before. This time, I pulled the knife free. I handed it to the man and felt myself fading, falling, my legs gave out and I fell.. It was a long fall, the floor was gone from under me. The Waffle House was above me as if I was falling into a well. Complete darkness all around me and I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. I was scared.
~=~=~=~=~
Zzzz..
~=~=~=~=~
“HELLO! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
I was in a long, rotted, slimy hallway. One of those you’d see in a horror movie with doors littered on either side of the walls. A red wall paper or it was stained as such, everything had a wetness to it. I didn't want to touch anything or breathe. I played Last of Us. This looks infected with spores. The voices I kept hearing came from all around me.. I wasn't sure what direction to go, through what doo, if any I was supposed to go through. What path was mine to take?
”Let him rest..”
A breeze of a voice rolls down the hallway, growing louder as it hits me in its ghostly whisper.
“You look like you need some rest”
Hearing what seemed like a conversation, I couldn't reach the source. Opening the door to my nearest right. I pushed into the room and stumbled to a pause. “Ohhh nooo!” I cried out as on the bed, sprawled out in the skimpiest of lingerie was Betty White. Not the alive version but the unalived one. Deady Bettie. She has come for me again! Scurrying back, I pulled the door closed and held it shut. “I recognize this as hell..”
The hallway went on longer than I remembered before I walked into the wrong room. Yet everything seemed.. Cleaner somehow.. “What is going on?”
“STAY AWAY FROM THE LIGHT!” A thunderous voice that vibrates along the wall. A man’s voice. “THE LIGHT IS DANGEROUS!” I stood shooketh as a chuckle of laughter followed.
There was a sense in me that I had to find the right door. I had to find the proper path so I could get out of this prison, whatever it was. I came up short trying to take a deep breath but it didn't stop me, I turned the next doorknob and shoved into the room. I expected the worst, expected a nightmare. It was paradise..
White sand beaches, the smell of the ocean just glistening as far as the eye can see. A lounge chair was already set up. I step into the room further, the door staying open as I never remove my hand from it. Nothing this perfect was bound to be real and I kept that in mind.. No matter how alluring this was becoming.
“Can I interest you in something to drink?” She came out of nowhere but she was barely wearing anything so I immediately forgave her. “Maybe some of our complimentary prerolls?” She stepped aside to reveal a platter of blunts, cones and large nuggets of marijuana.
“He will be back in no time, my Bestie is a fighter!”
I didn't even need to recognize the voice. Nobody else called me such things. The paradise in my view wasn't strong enough to ignore her words that echoed into the room from behind me, from the hallway. There was a choice to be made and I made it. Leaving the room, I stepped slowly back out of the room and the door came pulled to a close. I sighed as my eyes closed, I was feeling a bit different now.
“If he does die..”
“HE WON'T DIE, SHUT UP!”
I let out a grunt. I could hear the voices much more clearly now. Turning to face the hallway, it had once again changed. It resembled a hospital now. White walls, a stretcher against the wall. Slips for clipboards on the doors for patient information. The floors were sparkling and waxed to perfection.. I moved, following the pattern on the floors.
“You should go..” This voice was very close and as I came to a doorway on my right, it was the only door I had found opened. Inside, I found the source to all of the voices I was hearing. Cynara Delaney, my student, a football player for a Team I coached. “Elm and I will stay in case he wakes up..”
Clearly unaware of these plans, Elm comes into view as he stares at Cynara, standing next to her. “I can stay for a little bit. I have to help Jimmy “The” King get ready for his match.”
“That guy is an idiot!” Cyn snaps back at Elm.
“I’m aware but..” He motions towards the hospital bed that they are almost blocking my view of. “He gave me the assignment..”
“Yeah, well, he’s often an idiot as well.”
“Hey!” A third voice, one I knew and recognized right away. Getting up from a chair, Sloane Taylor had a scrunched up nose, grrr look about her as she came around the bed to join her Sister and Elm. “Look, I’m okay. I’m fine. You two can leave and when he wakes up. I will let everyone know..”
Was I seeing this as it was happening or was this all but a dream? It felt real but maybe it was because I was finally able to hear them. See the faces that matched the voices and I wasn't seeing any signs of heaven or hell or even the Waffle House. I felt close.. To what, I wasn't sure. Not until I saw it. Me.
I had a tub going down my throat. Wires taped all over me. I looked like Poop shaped into a turd. My beard started to grow in, that Poop grew like weeds though so I wasn't surprised. How many days had it been? Even the hair on my head was looking very chia pet except for the coloring. I found myself staring down at myself as I approached the side of the bed.
Everything began to pour into my thoughts. What happened, where I was, and the pain I was feeling was because of that. Was this what being out of body was like? Was I in spirit form living in the world of my own dreams and nightmares? I needed to wake up.. I wasn't entirely sure how but everything in my fiber was telling me what to do. I let it whisper from my lips as I acted out my own words. “Get in bed..”
.
..
…
“What?” The light made my eyes squeeze in pain as they opened to the room. The same room I was just in but.. Somehow this was different. I felt someone grab my hand, my neck moved with stiffness as I saw.. A NIGHTMARE! It was my Mother! “Get in bed?! Boooy why haven't you called me? So what you were stabbed, you can't pick up a phone and LET ME KNOW?!”
I yanked my hand free of hers and snapped out of it. I was jolted by my own dream and found myself still in the hospital bed. My Mother wasn't there anymore. Was that a dream? When does it stop?
“Hi!”
Coming into the room carrying a cup of coffee. Sloane Taylor stood frozen as she let out the one word greeting upon seeing me with my eyes open. I expected someone but knowing what my Bestie has been going through as of late.. It shouldn't be her.. Still, I was overjoyed seeing her standing there. No longer did I have a tube down my throat, it was raw, sore and felt like I drank liquid metal but I knew I could muster at least a few words.
“Hi.. Are you real?”
Everything was white. It was so bright that it was hard to make anything out. The ground under me felt soft and I saw nothing but clouds and a horizon. The heck was going on?
"Next in line!"
I snap to my right to see a ticket booth. The man inside wore white and had.. A halo hovering over his head? What was going on? I didn't see anyone else so next in line must have been me. Approaching the booth, the man greets me with a smile and a nod. "Name?"
"Jason."
"Full name please.." He was writing some stuff down with a feathered pen. What was my name? It seemed foggy to me even to find that information. Finally as it came to me, I said it as if questioning if that was the right name.
"Jason Cashe?"
"Cashe.. Cashe.. How do you spell that?" He gives me a look to confirm.
"C-A-S-H-E"
"Ahhhh yes.. Jason Andrew Cashe? Yup, I got you here. Let's see.."
Was this really what it seemed to be? Looking past the ticket booth, I found glowing golden gates. It sure seemed to be what it looked like. Is this my own interpretation of Heaven? I wasn't a religious person so none of this made sense. I didn't belong here, that I felt and knew as a truth.
"You don't belong here."
I just said that to myself. Could he hear my inside voice? "No?" I asked. "Where do I belong?"
"Can you take two steps back please?"
"Umm.. Sure.." It was a weird request but I did so without hesitation.
"BREATHE!"
My chest gasped for air. It wasn't until that very moment that I realized I hadn't been breathing. The shot of air felt like my first breath and it felt so clean and filling in the soreness of my lungs. Everything went black as the floor under my feet fell out from under me..
…
…
…
I felt off. Fuzzy. Am I dead? Drugged? What is going on and why do I feel so weak? There was a sharp pain with every breath I tried to take but couldn't take a full one. I wasn't sure why but I could feel hands on me, against my face and midsection, against my chest that had a burning sensation that didn't feel like anything good.. Yet everything was dark. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear anything other than the struggles of my own gargling gasped attempts at breathing. These might be my last times having one, I might be dying.
Stop being so dramatic..” I heard the taunting whisper as I drifted to what seemed like death, that voice kept me in the game.
…
…
…
It took some doing but I forced my eyes open as much as I could. I wasn't dead but instead, I was inside of a room. A hospital maybe? There was a Doctor or at least some weirdo in a white coat and some scrubs. Maybe I'm in Mexico and I'm sitting in a tub of ice and just had my kidneys removed.. It was kind of cold. The Doctor was talking. His words take a minute to come through clearly, the room was blurry, he was blurry. Nothing was clear.
“His left lung has partially collapsed from the stabbing. It created a wound, what we call a sucking chest wound. Right now, there’s air and fluids trapped within his chest cavity and it’s keeping his lung from fully reinflating. We have to get that out.”
Was he talking about me?! I wanted to blurt out, raise hell and talk Poop but was unable. Unable to even move my head, I wanted to see who he was talking to.. My eyes felt like they were crossing the desert as dry as they were. I felt incapable of moving them or fully even opening them so, I barely saw her standing there as I drifted off to sleep. Really, I just noticed her eyebrows and in my head, I said her name. "Sloane."
.
..
…
"If you die, Wraith is going to do the eulogy." The male voice that whispered felt familiar. I could hear his words but was unable to open my eyes and see who it was. Was I in a coma? Please don't let this be a dream about the voice I recognized this to be. If Matt Knox was in my dreams, I was surely having a nightmare. He had that arrogant prick to his voice that was hardly mistaken. The kind of guy that creeps and weirdos would warn someone about..
"Would you leave him alone!" I recognized that voice as well. In the imagination of my dreamstate, I could almost see one voice as the devil on my shoulder which made the other voice.. An angel. I didn't deserve one of those.. I wanted to cry, to scream, to fight and felt so helpless to do any of it. I was tired.
~=~=~=~=~
Zzzz..
~=~=~=~=~
Waffle House? Do normal people dream about the Waffle House? I knew it was a dream because of a few things. I was assed out in a Hospital Gown and there was a booth filled with Midgets and a female Midget twerking on top of the table. I know for sure I have had that dream before.. So this was certainly a dream.
I could smell the fresh waffles being cooked in the kitchen. I could hear the chatter of conversation with the numerous people here to get a meal. It felt like I was really here and hell, maybe I could go for some waffles..
"... Can I have your autograph?"
Everything froze. I felt the chill dance up my open gown at the back, tickle my tushy and climb my spine. Every voice silenced as heads turned. Eyes stared. Slowly I turned around and there he was.
"You!"
"... Can I have a hug?" His head was down but he stood right out of arm's reach.
"Why I oughta!"
In honor of the Simpsons no longer using the Homer choking Bart spot. I felt this was a nice addition to the dream. I reached at him to wring his neck but we ended up embracing in a hug.. How did that happen? What is that smell? I was inhaling a scent coming from his shoulder as my face slid past it. I know that smell but for the life of me, I couldn't identify it.
”For the life of me..” I whispered in my mind. It reminded me of what was coming. It came. I felt the knife plunge into me just as it did the first time. I was ready for it. I didn't gasp out this time. I stepped back and looked down at the knife as I felt the struggle for breath hit me just as it did before. This time, I pulled the knife free. I handed it to the man and felt myself fading, falling, my legs gave out and I fell.. It was a long fall, the floor was gone from under me. The Waffle House was above me as if I was falling into a well. Complete darkness all around me and I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. I was scared.
~=~=~=~=~
Zzzz..
~=~=~=~=~
“HELLO! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
I was in a long, rotted, slimy hallway. One of those you’d see in a horror movie with doors littered on either side of the walls. A red wall paper or it was stained as such, everything had a wetness to it. I didn't want to touch anything or breathe. I played Last of Us. This looks infected with spores. The voices I kept hearing came from all around me.. I wasn't sure what direction to go, through what doo, if any I was supposed to go through. What path was mine to take?
”Let him rest..”
A breeze of a voice rolls down the hallway, growing louder as it hits me in its ghostly whisper.
“You look like you need some rest”
Hearing what seemed like a conversation, I couldn't reach the source. Opening the door to my nearest right. I pushed into the room and stumbled to a pause. “Ohhh nooo!” I cried out as on the bed, sprawled out in the skimpiest of lingerie was Betty White. Not the alive version but the unalived one. Deady Bettie. She has come for me again! Scurrying back, I pulled the door closed and held it shut. “I recognize this as hell..”
The hallway went on longer than I remembered before I walked into the wrong room. Yet everything seemed.. Cleaner somehow.. “What is going on?”
“STAY AWAY FROM THE LIGHT!” A thunderous voice that vibrates along the wall. A man’s voice. “THE LIGHT IS DANGEROUS!” I stood shooketh as a chuckle of laughter followed.
There was a sense in me that I had to find the right door. I had to find the proper path so I could get out of this prison, whatever it was. I came up short trying to take a deep breath but it didn't stop me, I turned the next doorknob and shoved into the room. I expected the worst, expected a nightmare. It was paradise..
White sand beaches, the smell of the ocean just glistening as far as the eye can see. A lounge chair was already set up. I step into the room further, the door staying open as I never remove my hand from it. Nothing this perfect was bound to be real and I kept that in mind.. No matter how alluring this was becoming.
“Can I interest you in something to drink?” She came out of nowhere but she was barely wearing anything so I immediately forgave her. “Maybe some of our complimentary prerolls?” She stepped aside to reveal a platter of blunts, cones and large nuggets of marijuana.
“He will be back in no time, my Bestie is a fighter!”
I didn't even need to recognize the voice. Nobody else called me such things. The paradise in my view wasn't strong enough to ignore her words that echoed into the room from behind me, from the hallway. There was a choice to be made and I made it. Leaving the room, I stepped slowly back out of the room and the door came pulled to a close. I sighed as my eyes closed, I was feeling a bit different now.
“If he does die..”
“HE WON'T DIE, SHUT UP!”
I let out a grunt. I could hear the voices much more clearly now. Turning to face the hallway, it had once again changed. It resembled a hospital now. White walls, a stretcher against the wall. Slips for clipboards on the doors for patient information. The floors were sparkling and waxed to perfection.. I moved, following the pattern on the floors.
“You should go..” This voice was very close and as I came to a doorway on my right, it was the only door I had found opened. Inside, I found the source to all of the voices I was hearing. Cynara Delaney, my student, a football player for a Team I coached. “Elm and I will stay in case he wakes up..”
Clearly unaware of these plans, Elm comes into view as he stares at Cynara, standing next to her. “I can stay for a little bit. I have to help Jimmy “The” King get ready for his match.”
“That guy is an idiot!” Cyn snaps back at Elm.
“I’m aware but..” He motions towards the hospital bed that they are almost blocking my view of. “He gave me the assignment..”
“Yeah, well, he’s often an idiot as well.”
“Hey!” A third voice, one I knew and recognized right away. Getting up from a chair, Sloane Taylor had a scrunched up nose, grrr look about her as she came around the bed to join her Sister and Elm. “Look, I’m okay. I’m fine. You two can leave and when he wakes up. I will let everyone know..”
Was I seeing this as it was happening or was this all but a dream? It felt real but maybe it was because I was finally able to hear them. See the faces that matched the voices and I wasn't seeing any signs of heaven or hell or even the Waffle House. I felt close.. To what, I wasn't sure. Not until I saw it. Me.
I had a tub going down my throat. Wires taped all over me. I looked like Poop shaped into a turd. My beard started to grow in, that Poop grew like weeds though so I wasn't surprised. How many days had it been? Even the hair on my head was looking very chia pet except for the coloring. I found myself staring down at myself as I approached the side of the bed.
Everything began to pour into my thoughts. What happened, where I was, and the pain I was feeling was because of that. Was this what being out of body was like? Was I in spirit form living in the world of my own dreams and nightmares? I needed to wake up.. I wasn't entirely sure how but everything in my fiber was telling me what to do. I let it whisper from my lips as I acted out my own words. “Get in bed..”
.
..
…
“What?” The light made my eyes squeeze in pain as they opened to the room. The same room I was just in but.. Somehow this was different. I felt someone grab my hand, my neck moved with stiffness as I saw.. A NIGHTMARE! It was my Mother! “Get in bed?! Boooy why haven't you called me? So what you were stabbed, you can't pick up a phone and LET ME KNOW?!”
I yanked my hand free of hers and snapped out of it. I was jolted by my own dream and found myself still in the hospital bed. My Mother wasn't there anymore. Was that a dream? When does it stop?
“Hi!”
Coming into the room carrying a cup of coffee. Sloane Taylor stood frozen as she let out the one word greeting upon seeing me with my eyes open. I expected someone but knowing what my Bestie has been going through as of late.. It shouldn't be her.. Still, I was overjoyed seeing her standing there. No longer did I have a tube down my throat, it was raw, sore and felt like I drank liquid metal but I knew I could muster at least a few words.
“Hi.. Are you real?”