more terror

In the first part of the dream, I had moved back to Columbus. Fuck if I know why. I was bringing my things up to the third floor of my new place in a crummy old apartment building (you know, the kind that always smells like ramen noodles and has stained, carpeted stairs) and I saw David and Kendyl. "No shit!" David looked shocked to see me and shook my hand. Kendyl shrugged and gave me a dirty look. I excitedly tried to relate to them why I'd moved back and tell them about my life as of late, but they weren't listening. They stared blankly forward and then looked at me like I was some kind of freak. A really strange reaction from such warm and vivacious people. Kendyl looked at David and rolled her eyes. I felt so stupid and awkward. Then all of a sudden a really tall guy put his arms around me. I turned around to look at him. He was a bland, athletic looking guy about my age. He was wearing some sort of letterman jacket from some school and looked like he just stepped out of the 50s. "Umm...do I know you?" I asked him. He laughed, and then told me we had slept together the previous night. And I didn't even remember him.

In the next part of the dream, my mom had called me and told me to come over because she had found my older brother (apparently he hadn't been heard from in a few months) and that I needed to see him. I felt an angsty knot in my stomach on the drive over. I wasn't looking forward to whatever fucked up drama my family had in store for me this time. I went into the house and my mom's expression was cautious. "Kenny, she's here," she yelled over her shoulder. My older brother came staggering out. He didn't have any eyes. Just two little black marks where eyes had been. He was horrifying to behold. He jerked his head around in every direction as if sniffing the air. "Is Melissa here?" he asked in a stern voice. I shrieked and cried and asked what happened. "What did you get into now? Who did this to you?!" He said nothing. He just sat on the couch and smoked. He was very negative. Every word out of his mouth was vitriolic and flittery in his usual manner. Things like "Yeah, that's nice. Why don't you fucking take that knife, put it to my throat, and end this shit you stupid fucking cunt." He was being alternately quiet and mean. He looked like that villain from Dick Tracy. I felt so awful for him. I understood why he didn't want to live. It was an awful, deep, dark feeling. That things DO get shitty and some people can never get their heads above water and some people ARE better off dead. I remembered how unhappy Ken was before, drinking his life away. And now he would spend the rest of it blind and yelling at people, cursing my mom for not bringing him beer. Until he'd eventually stagger out of the house and get as far as he could before jumping off an overpass, getting hit by a car, or being picked up by police and spending the rest of his days in a psychiatric hospital like my younger brother. Not alive. Not happy. Basically a vegetable.

What a terrible way to start the day.