Dream Threads

The silhouette was staring at me; I tried to speak but I was paralyzed. It looked like me mother; it had her choppy short hair, and her long, slender fingers. But when it spoke, its voice sounded like writhing snakes and I couldn’t understand the words. They sounded harsh, hurtful, and sent a chill down my spine. I was screaming, and I wanted to run away; but my body wouldn’t move. It began creeping toward me, shouting its violent reptilian cry.

                 “It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream,” I repeated to myself. “You can change it if you really want to, just like changing the channel on the television.”

                But the more I tried to go stop this nightmare, the closer the silhouette got. It was my mother, but it wasn’t. This version of my mother had red eyes, claws, and skin so tight it seemed translucent.

                All of a sudden, I was yanked out of my dream. My mother’s oncologist stood over me with a sullen face. “There is nothing more that we could do, so we had to let her go, I’m sorry.”