I was about five years old when I first had this recurring dream…
I was running through the twists and turns of a dark labyrinth. The walls were of rough stone that grazed the skin, and the floor was covered in fine grit which rose up in choking clouds.
I was being pursued by something part creature, part machine. Often I would be able to outrun it, as it wasn’t particularly fast. However, I was human and had to stop and rest, but the creature, being mechanical, did not tire. It was relentless and it always caught up with me. The whir of the thing’s sharp rotors would rouse me, and I’d have to get to my feet and flee once more.
A curious aspect of the dream was that even though I was so young when it began, I was grown-up. About twenty or so. As I continued having this dream throughout my life, I stayed this age in the dream even when I passed it.
Mostly I was alone, but sometimes I was with other people who were also trying to outrun the thing in the tunnels.
Sometimes they fell behind.
The shriek of its metal voice as it tore them to pieces would echo so loudly it would wake me.
I’d find myself lying prone and struggling to move, yet I was unable to. My chest would be pounding and although I’d cry out, no sound would come from my mouth. My ears would still be ringing with the dreadful metal shriek of the creature.
Then I’d hear the whirr of rotors, and realise that I had somehow brought the creature from my dream into the real world with me. Soon it would step forth into the shaft of moonlight from the window and open its gleaming jaws for me.
I’d wake up for real.
I’d reach out for the glass of water beside my bed, then start at the sound of foxes screaming in the night.
I’d shiver and try to still my rapid heart, for the foxes sounded just like the creature in my dream. Metallic. Like a woman in pain.
I’d think about going to my mother’s room for comfort, but knew it would be a mistake to do so. She was quick with a slap at the best of times. If I was late, or cheeky or rude. There was always a good reason. At night though, she’d often be with some urgent voiced man, all sticky with drink and desire. That desire would turn to bad anger if I should intrude.
I’d reap this anger the next day. It would begin with slaps on the arms and legs. No big deal. Soon, however, she would lose control.
Afterwards, the clunk of her rings as she’d beaten me about the head would echo through my skull for days.
Sometimes, one of the men would stumble into my room by mistake and curse.
The smell of alcohol from their breath would linger, stale and pungent long after they had left.
Sometimes they’d try to pry the cover from my face, before my mother would drag them impatiently out of my room and back into hers.
I’d lie with my eyes screwed shut against this different kind of menace for hours.
As the years went on, the dream was less frequent, but it progressed.
One time, I outran the creature and found a way out of the labyrinth. Only to find that I was in the middle of a vast desert. The air was dry and dusty. Sand dunes undulated in every direction, and a fiery sun baked down so that I had to take refuge in the creature’s tunnels once more.
Then my mother died.
After a few false starts as to what to do with the rest of my life, I ended up living with someone who said they loved me. An artist. A painter. They were older, talented and clever. They painted huge canvases, often of me. I was flattered.
We were broke and I had to work in bars to pay our rent.
My lover couldn’t work in bars because they had to spend all their time painting, or thinking about painting, which often included drinking. Often drinking quite a lot. When they had been drinking quite a lot, they got rough and insistent. If I resisted it was worse.
Other times, it was true they were a bit quick with a slap. If I was late, or cheeky or rude. There was always a good reason. But most of the time we were fine. Happy. In love.
One day, I picked up a brush and became a painter too in a smaller way. I painted pictures of metal beings, of fox-like women and desert landscapes. Sometimes the metal beings and fox-like women were in tunnels. Often running. Sometimes exhausted.
My lover rolled their eyes at my paintings. I hadn’t been to art school, and didn’t know what I was doing so my pictures didn’t really count in the same way as theirs.
A couple of years later, I was sitting on a hospital gurney waiting for an x-ray. The nurse tending me asked when I was going to leave the abusive relationship I was obviously in.
My lover had left the cubicle to get something.
The nurse looked over their shoulder to see if my lover was on the way back. Then the nurse told me I was a ‘battered woman’.
That’s ridiculous, I told them. I was young and in love with a talented artist. I was a bit of an artist myself. Battered women were older and lumpier and frumpier.
They gave me a Valium and pressed a card into my hand.
I lay back down on the gurney and fell asleep.
It had been a while, but there I was, fleeing down the twists and turns of the creature’s labyrinth once more.
Its metallic shrieks surrounded me.
I can’t keep running, I thought. I just can’t do this anymore.
And so I stopped and turned to face it.
I’d never looked directly at the creature before.
It looked sad and regretful, but urgent. It had metal jaws and metal claws and whirring rotors with sharp blades. It was hunched and ready to spring and grab. There was a stale, pungent smell surrounding it.
The creature started thrusting its metal pelvis in an obscene manner. I realised there was a vile protrusion angled towards me, and I understood at last what this thing was.
I was roused by the sound of a trolley being wheeled down the hospital corridor. The shriek of thirsty wheels was like a fox screaming. Like a woman in pain. Like the rape-machine in the tunnels.
I sat up on the gurney. I was clutching at something in my hand. Clutching so hard the sharp corners had drawn blood. It was the card the nurse had given me. It had the number of a refuge on it.
I understood then what started happening to me when I was three years old, two years before the dreams began. I knew what I had to do…
So, today you might know my paintings. They got quite popular. They created a buzz. Articles were written about them. I had exhibitions. I still have exhibitions.
But perhaps what people were more interested in was how I had fled in the night, my first canvases rammed into a taxi seat beside me. The little place I’d shared with my lover going up in flames.
They’d tried to charge me with arson. That was always mentioned in the articles. And the fact that they couldn’t make it stick. Much was said about the fact that I had burned another artist’s work. I still shrug and insist it was an accident. It was.
Besides, they were pictures of me. My image. Mine to burn.
Much is also said of my lover’s drink problem and the reputed abuse.
I don’t talk about that.
And I don’t dream of the labyrinth or the creature any more.
But I don’t like it if I hear foxes screaming in the night…
Find Sam on Insta @iamsamfaith