The dream and the dreamer
It’s late evening and for all the tumult outside it was
awfully quiet in the room. The windows were shut tight locking out the world. Only an eerie silence fills the dark space.
Stale air hung still as night, undisturbed by the passing time. The room sits
and waits, holding its secret deep inside.
She knew she’d been brought in to open up this riddle, to
find an answer and yet she was not fully prepared for what lay ahead. Dressed
in her white t-shirt and jeans she did not betray her profession. Even the
jewellery she wore offered no explanation for her presence in the sealed room. Penny took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The image she'd been given was still clasped in her hands. She found herself
staring out of the window, the flashes of light from the passing traffic painted
her shadow on to the wall. The illumination reminded her of the flickering
candlelight in the room she’d just left. A shiver of familiarity passed over
her, as if she’d been here before. Her soft brown eyes traced from the bay
window following the unremarkable magnolia wall to the fireplace and television.
Everything seemed peaceful and familiar; everything in its usual place, but a wrongness
rang though the room.
It was so quiet. She found her attention drawn toward the
glowing television set. Even with no sound the colourful cartoons contrasted
the dark oppression of the room. As she grew closer to it, her apprehension
grew. Penny felt her heart not so much creep but race to her throat as her eyes
anxiously chased a glossy gossamer which covered the screen. In a moment of
realisation she turned around where she was confronted by the horror of the
situation.
There was blood everywhere and there slumped in the centre of
it were two broken ragdoll shapes. The scene rewound and then played out like
an old black and white horror movie, before Penny. She saw their mother stand
over them still and quite. There was a distance in her eyes, a blank empty hate
appeared to fill her body and take it over. The woman took the knife in her
hands and brought it brutally down on to the children over and over. The
woman’s robotic actions were extenuated the feeling of alienation within Penny;
it was as if the woman were possessed. Regardless of how much Penny wanted it
to stop she knew couldn’t interfere with the past; she was only an observer.
Horrified she turned away and closed her eyes. When she reopened them she found
she’d returned to the room with the flickering candle. Placing the image of the
crime scene face up on to the table in front of her she stood up from her chair
only to confirm with her client who the perpetrator of this act was.
