literature

Cacophony of Screaming Stars

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Literature Text

The Cacophony of Screaming Stars
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Amorphous blobs float in front of him, taking on strange forms before morphing into the familiar shapes of numerals, prime numbers.

   1 2 3 5 11 13

The thirteen loomed at him for a moment before attacking and swallowing up the 3, shifting around to become a 16 which glowed brightly and threatened to blind him as he watched.

He wakes up.




The mathematician begins to suspect that his dreams are interfering with his everyday life.
He believes he would be more productive and more useful part of society if he could get more restful sleep.
If he could sleep at night then he could figure out things during the day, he feels his accomplishments are being stolen from him by his dreams.

He has a sleep study done, an MRI, goes to psychiatrists and doctors. Everyone says he's fine.
Eventually, after much searching he finds a doctor of alternative medicine who nods sagely as he describes his symptoms.
The doctor provides him with a treatment, some ground roots and herbs, all in a little capsule.
The mathematician takes the pills and after a few days he starts to sleep more soundly, his dreams fading more and more.
After a week he is more productive, after two he's feeling on top of the world, more confident and sharper than ever.

The doctor recommends he start cutting back on the treatment and doesn't give him more, the mathematician sullenly abides.
That night he wakes from a horrible nightmare of knives and teeth and blood and shadows with glowing eyes pursuing him and hounding him to his death.

The next morning he rushes to the herbalist, his doctor, and demands more of the pill that freed him from the dreams.
The doctor states plainly that dreams can only be repressed so long, and moderation is key, that his nightmares are a symptom of taking it too long.
Undeterred, the mathematician pushes the doctor until he gives in, giving him a fresh bottle of pills.

The dreams cease again and his restful sleep returns.
During the day he starts to get headaches, minor at first, and then intense migraines.
Body aches and pains, malaise, anxiety attacks, paranoia.
Finally he stops taking the pills, cold turkey.

The symptoms fade, but rather than going away entirely, they start to become more persistant.
Little flickers in the corner of his eyes from the migraines stick with him throughout the day.
The nightmares are constant now, eyes blackened in the morning, bedsheets ripped off the bed.
His confidence shot, he starts stuttering, an old nemesis from his childhood reoccurring.

The dammed herbalist won't answer his calls, won't open his door.
He breaks into his office one night and eats a handful of pills, washing them down with luke warm milk from a carton in his pocket.
He drifts off to sleep on the floor of the office, surrounded by the shattered glass of the window he'd broken.
Sunlight warms his face as he opens his eyes, but the sky is full of stars. He's standing naked in front of his house with a gas can in his hand.
The stars scream down at him as his home burns and a chill sets in as he watches the flames leap into the air, holding the faces of devils and long forgotten deities.
...

edit: Fixed typos.
© 2013 - 2024 xybre
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Sinisterurge's avatar
It's like reading an entire Stephen King novel in one page.