Some dreams taste like cotton candy. Nostalgic moments, remembered imperfectly with their spun-sugar veneers. Others are dark chocolate, writhing with intertwined limbs, playing out carnal fantasies.
I curl a lip and skulk through the velvet darkness, hunting for something more substantial. Saccharine bonbons cannot satisfy my hunger.
A whiff of smoke catches my attention. Not the clean burn of a campfire, but the acrid zing of melting plastic and charred roof tiles. Beneath, there’s a tangy vein like mold in aged cheese.
Fear.
Somewhere in this wine-dark ocean, there’s a nightmare raging. My stomach growls.
###
Lissa woke with a jolt, the fire crackling in her ears. For a thunderous heartbeat, she was somewhere smoky and hot. She reached across the bed, but her fingers scrabbled over cool sheets where her husband should have been.
A wail tangled in her ribs, a twisted vine of night terrors and grief. She peeled the oversized Metallica t-shirt she wore as a nightdress off her sticky chest. Pulling the neckline to her nose, she sniffed. It reeked of her soured sweat, but a hint of Damon’s spiced aftershave still clung to the fabric. It was all she had left of him.
The sob crawled up her throat.
Lissa swallowed hard and got out of bed. A little orange bottle on the bathroom vanity promised dreamless oblivion in the deep sleep stages beyond REM, but she decided on tea instead. Not that she needed the nightmare. She told herself the pills made her fuzzy the next day; that was all.
Without turning on the lights, she went to the kitchenette and plugged in the electric kettle. Before long, chamomile scented the air.
Silver moonlight drifted through the cabin windows, casting stretched-taffy shadows with antlers and claws. Vacant eyes watched her cross the living room in her bare feet. Snowshoe hare. White-tailed deer. Wolverine. Black bear.
She should’ve stayed at the Holiday Inn.
Lissa paused at a framed photo of Damon and her father-in-law in matching plaid hats, rifles propped over their shoulders. Her husband hadn’t been much of a hunter. I just like spending time with Dad, he’d said.
With the house unlivable, she’d hoped she’d sense something of Damon at the family hunting camp. All she found was a moth-eaten afghan and a menagerie of dead animals. The glassy-eyed trophies were the stuff of nightmares.
Lissa only dreamed of fire.
###
Famished, I consider munching on fantasy sweetmeats. My mouth waters thinking of quenching my thirst with lemonade sunshine. I linger alongside a bubble where a boy plays rock-n-roll on stage before a crowd of gingerbread fans. The guitar riff lures me closer. My eyes glaze over as I reach for the ephemeral barrier between this tasteless void and the smorgasbord within the dream.
A muffled shriek breaks the hunger-trance, and I sift through hundreds of rainbow-hued confections, searching for something darker to sate me. There. The nightmare is soot-gray with flickers of red and orange at its core.
I take a breath and plunge into a delicious chaos.
The bedroom curtains blacken and curl. In the distance, sirens compete with the heartbeat yowl of a smoke detector. The air is too hot to breathe, but whatever dream construct I’ve jumped into has no lungs. It’s just a man-shaped memory.
“Damon!”
The dreamer’s shout is hoarse and shrill at the same time. The flavor bites—grilled jalapenos. I gobble it up. A yearning for more churns in my gut.
Following the script of her dream, I turn to face her. A spark jumps from the curtains to my pajama pants. The flannel smokes, then catches. Despite the heat, her face pales as flames lick up my leg.
Something in her eyes catches me off guard. There’s the oak-barrel whiskey of grief and cheddar terror so sharp it cuts the tongue. But there’s a hint of something complex, neither sour nor salty, but oddly bittersweet.
It tastes like relief.
###
Lissa grumbled as the blare of the smoke alarm resolved into the ping of her cell.
“Not now!” She squeezed her eyes as if keeping them closed meant she could keep dreaming. “Let me sleep.” Let me see him.
The phone beeped again. She huffed and scrolled through her texts.
hey sis checking in
don’t get eaten by bears
call when U can
its been wks
hope UR ok
Lissa dropped her phone on the mattress, too tired to respond. When had she last eaten? Or showered? She shuffled into the bathroom. While she waited for the water to run hot, she studied the stranger in the mirror. Her cheeks were gaunt, and the bags under her eyes had their own carry-on luggage.
She should take the bloody sleeping pills. Get some restful sleep.
A haze wafted from behind the shower curtain. Steam disguised as smoke.
Lissa turned off the water and then curled up on the sofa to chase the nightmare.
###
I do not dream, myself, but I can enhance others’ visions. Though I stoke the fire, her fear is losing its spice. She keeps her eyes focused on my—Damon’s—face as if we’ll disappear if she blinks. I create phantom beams that crash down behind her, explode the window in a hurricane of glass, but she doesn’t flinch.
Dancing flames devour our hair, the flesh of our cheeks reddens and blisters.
I sample her subconscious. There is no umami, no horror.
She knows this is just a nightmare, and for some insane, human-damned reason, she’s desperate to be here.
My feast spoils, maggot-riddled meat and curdled cream, yet I cannot look away.
###
Sunlight warmed Lissa’s cheek, gentler than the blazing fire. She grimaced and pulled the pillow over her head. The nightmare was a recurring friend, but something had changed. She replayed it in her mind, step-by-step:
Smoke tickled her throat, burned her eyes.
The smoke detector blared.
Pain, as the doorknob seared her palm. A warning that her brain registered too late.
The muffled whump as she flung open the bedroom door.
Damon’s scream when the fire leapt from the curtains to his pajamas.
She played it again: Damon’s screams.
But he hadn’t this time. He’d just looked at her with hungry eyes. Really looked. Not the indistinct, details-fading dream husband, but vivid like a high-res photograph tacked up in the middle of an impressionist painting.
Lissa tried falling back asleep, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Even though her limbs felt like concrete and her jaw creaked as she yawned, she couldn’t settle. The sleeping pills would knock her out, but she wouldn’t dream. Perhaps she’d finally wake feeling rested.
She didn’t take them. Instead, she made a nest on the couch with the threadbare afghan. Sleep would come eventually. She just needed to see Damon one more time.
###
The fire in the woman’s nightmare has turned to tasteless yellow-and-orange tissue paper. I should move on, find another dreamer to sample, and yet I seek her out again and again. I wonder what it would be like to run my fingers through her hair. Would her lips taste like ripe plums, bursting with juice? Sweet, but not cloying.
My stomach flutters. It’s not me she looks at with those liquid-brown doe eyes, but for the first time I feel seen. I use Damon’s mouth to smile at her and am rewarded with a laugh that bubbles like champagne.
The fire dies, and the dream shifts. Where has she taken us?
We sit on a blanket in a woodland park. The cliché picnic date. Normally, I’d roll my eyes and pass a dream like this by—a cinnamon roll that smells better than it tastes—but with her, I indulge in the gooey dough and sticky icing.
She’s younger than in the burning nightmare, maybe by a few years. Perhaps it’s just the pre-fire innocence that makes her seem so carefree. Maybe it’s because she can pretend in this timeline that her Damon will still be alive when she wakes.
I don’t fiddle with the dream’s details, just follow her playbook and open a bottle of Shiraz. When I pour, the wine flows blood-red, a splash of intense color against the vintage sepia backdrop. She takes the glass, and the diamond on her finger glitters too brightly in the washed-out sunshine. Such strange details humans highlight in dreams.
With her, it all tastes of ambrosia.
###
Lissa screamed into her pillow. The empty cabin, the vacant bed, the quiet forest. Reality was the true nightmare in its nothingness. A hollow pit behind her breastbone ached. Maybe if she ate something. She stumbled into the kitchenette and warmed up a can of soup but didn’t have the energy to take more than a few bites. It was like eating ash.
She went into the bathroom to brush the taste out of her mouth. The overpowering mint of the toothpaste made her gag. The stranger was back in the mirror, lank hair and bloodshot eyes.
When Lissa moved, the Reverse Lissa followed a microsecond behind, her limbs sluggish as if wading through gelatin. One after another, their clumsy hands knocked the orange bottle off the vanity. Pills clattered onto the tiles like a pink hailstorm.
Lissa didn’t clean them up. She just wanted to go back to bed and dream.
###
I wait inside the bubble, eager to see where she will dream us tonight. It’s rare that I feed so often on the same sleeper, but everyone else tastes of graveyard dirt. As she fades out of consciousness, I morph into Damon’s long legs and broad shoulders. I’ve worn more faces than there are grains of sand on a beach, but this is my favorite. Not because I find his crooked nose and dark hair endearing, but because it makes her smile.
She finally appears in a simple blue dress. Golden light halos her curls. Though I was born in darkness, I feel the sun’s warmth through her. Her eyes on me satisfy like no bonbon, no feast ever could.
I hold out my hand, and she laces her fingers through mine. They’re as delicate as bird bones in my grip.
“Hello, Damon.”
I’ve never had a name and claim his for my own. It tastes like caviar—a pop of brine and smooth as butter. I nibble slowly, hoping it will last forever.
The dream flickers like a damaged movie reel.
For a fragment of eternity, she changes. The sundress morphs into a threadbare t-shirt, the dark gray of black fabric washed too many times. Her skin turns sallow, and the stars in her eyes blink out. Wavy hair becomes a limp ombre, the tips translucent like she’s fading away. Everything about her is blurred, a chalk drawing smudged by the heel of a hand.
I’ve taken too much.
The dream stabilizes, and my queen returns, brilliant as the imagined sun.
“Is everything okay?” She tilts her head.
Ravenous for her, I lean close, trailing my lips along her jawline. My breath is hot against her ear. “Take the damn pills.”
I disentangle myself from the dream and flee. I don’t have the willpower to say goodbye.
###
Lissa shuddered the moment Damon changed. One second, he was alive, and the next, he’d become an out-of-focus specter of a fading memory. The shock yanked her from the dream. Her neck ached, and the sheets twisted around her legs like a linen python.
She spent the day on the couch, imagining a lifetime of might-have-beens. The details slipped, cotton candy that melted on the tongue leaving flavorless sweetness behind. Outside, the sun set, and the moon rose, a silver coin replacing a copper one in the sky.
On shaky feet, Lissa got up and poured a glass of water. The sleeping pills tasted like chalk.
She snuggled into the bed. Tomorrow, she’d call her sister and see if she could stay awhile. Tonight, she just wanted the void. No nightmare, no dream, no torturing herself with a Damon who could never be.
As the dark took her, she thought she heard a stranger’s voice whisper, Sleep well, love. Perhaps I’ll see you in my dreams.
