The Nightmare Bell

In my last few seconds of falling asleep, the final thing that my senses register is the distant sound of a lone church bell striking out its melancholy tone. My wearied brain briefly entertains the mental image of a large bell, dark with rust, swinging to reveal a pointed clapper striking hard against its interior. However, I am asleep before the mental image can have much of an impression on me, and it falls away, like the light being blacked out of a room by the window blind. The curious World of the Dream claims me instead.

I'm lying on a hard, dusty floor. It seems to be the only definite thing that I can feel and touch, for I can't get up from my supine position. The floor has me in a deadly embrace, a dusty grasp, and I'm completely stuck. I can only move my eyes around and stare at my surroundings in horror.

Outside the glass-less windows, the sky is dark. The never-ceasing blackness is not even relieved by the cold stare of the mysterious moon. The ceiling is high and appears to be supported by dark stone beams forming an octagon between the glass-less windows, and I realise I'm inside a cold, dark bell tower. The thought enters my mind like a cold, clammy, deathly-white hand stroking the flesh of my face unpleasantly. I try to swallow, but my throat is too tight and a wet trail of saliva dribbles down my immobile chin.

Movement catches my eye directly above me. It is so dark I hadn't noticed it before, but my poor vision finally manages to register a large, dark, gruff-looking bell high above me swinging backwards and forwards on a network of beams and flywheels. As I continue to look up at it, small details are taken in by my overcharged brain. I notice its dark colour, its large size, a tiny inscription on its exterior and the long, heavy, pointed clapper. The recognition of the clapper sends a shock of panic vibrating through me. I recognise each little distinct feature of the bell as the same one that briefly entered across the blank canvas of my brain before I went to sleep. It has now resurfaced in my unconsciousness.

It is only now that I realise there is something not quite right. The bell is swinging violently and the clapper is crashing inside the dark interior, but I can't hear anything. It's as though my ears have been deliberately blocked with wax or water. The fact that such a large bell can move so vigourously and make no sound at all inspires further fear, although I'm already saturated with the emotion, to say nothing of cold sweat.

Suddenly, the mechanisms halt and the bell is stationery. I can see right into the interior of the bell now, it's much blacker on the inside and a constellation of pock-marks are scattered close to the rim where the clapper has struck it. This clapper is suspended in the perfect centre of the mouth of the bell like a slender inverted spire.

I still can't move, but I dither.

Then, without any indication beforehand, the mechanism supporting the bell breaks and the thing plunges toward me, sharp clapper and all! I'm still paralysed and in no way can I avoid the bell. I'll be trapped underneath it and pinned to the floor by the clapper!

For a few agonising seconds, clapper level with my heart, the bell hovers over me, ready to swallow me like a hungry beast. However, it never does catch its human prey, for a small but distinct beacon of consciousness ejects me from the torture chamber of the bell tower to the hard, uncomfortable chair on which I fell asleep in my student kitchen.

Outside the window, morning light creeps reluctantly in, like a half-awake student who knows that they cannot lie in bed any longer. The morning church bells clang sonorously, clear and loud in the cold air, reverbarating loudly in the ears of every citizen like a hysterical screamer.

The cold breath of rusted brass still plays over my tender flesh. I shiver.

Ode to my Fountain Pen.

Sharp nib
stabbing blue
into the
whiteness
of the
paper.
My three
bony fingers
caress you,
manouvre you
across the
page.
You carve
large knots
between
my fingers.
Making your
mark on
me as well
as the paper.
What pours
through my
brain, you
make it
real. You
record
it. There
would be no
Welford Soar
without
your
intricate
patterns
of ink.
What would
my brain
be if not
for you?
Nothing.
But then,
you'd be nothing
without
my hand
to guide
your exploits
across
the page.
We work
together.
We are
a great pair,
you are
my ideal
partner.
I treat
you with respect.
My work
is yours,
your work
is mine.

The World of the Dream.

The curious world of the dream. a strange place which we all slip into every night whether we remember it or not. Sometimes, the indelible inks of my brain brand such a picture into my mind that I can never shake it off, not even years later. Other times, I know a dream has indeed crept across my subconsciousness, but I sit there, with my head in my hands, trying to pluck the dream out of my memories and come up with nothing.

The World of the Dream is fluid and intangible, you can don another identity, gender or even race like a coat. Then, when it is time for you to wake up, you unfasten the buttons, breaking through the bondage of sleep and hang it up in the dream wardrobe for next time.

The World of Dreams has allowed me to travel to Nineteen-Hundred-and-Two, and tell A.J Balfour, the contemporary Prime Minister, that he was talking out of his arse. It has allowed me to ride through Sainsbury's on a bicycle, aiding the cake section, it has even allowed me to jump over a high balcony and land safely on the floor below like an anthropomorphic cat.

However, I have no control over where the World of Dreams drags me to. As such, the bondage of sleep has held me hostage in some of the most frightening and distressing of places. I have fallen into blackness and had to twitch myself awake. I have raced frantically around corridors in schools and colleges, trying to find my way to a non-existent exam. A real ruler in waking life fell on my neck and caused me to dream of being guillotined, but I thankfully managed to snap awake before the blade fell.

However, I hope the dream world will never again transport me to the Third Reich. Racing around the grey streets of Berlin, confronted by black Swastikas, clutching the arm of a non-Aryan and trying to find our way out of the dystopia. When I awoke, I was bathed in the cold clamminess of sweat.

At times like that, I never want to succumb to slumber again and re-enter he dream world. But I'll go there again tonight, and again every night of my life.