Dreams of skin and spire

or, a very (very) short dream

And that was when I realised. I was completely naked.

Again.

Right now it is late. The hours of daylight are being snatched and sent off to the northern hemisphere, borrowed until we can reclaim them once more come spring.

With this change of season and time, many new and surreal happenings are gracing my oneiric world. I’m going to jot one down. It is a morsel, this one, but it has been a little while since I’ve written of any dreams.

(There’s a more serious dreamscape being penned about the realisations and origins of nightmare, but I’m tempted to save that. It’ll simmer a little longer, the words brewing, distilling along an alembic of thought and time.

Previous dreams that have writhed onto the page can be found here.)

If you are ready, sprinkle that sand into your eyes and venture forth.

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In the moments before, I sat there watching the students flow past. They were a thousand faces moving and ebbing, pulled by a moon unseen. My fingers drummed the table, a confidence of knowledge keeping the thump-thump steady in my chest. Another few minutes and it would be me to stand and move and find my place. But I was early. Better prepared than ensnared—my motto in this realm. The dial of readiness ripe and rich and keeping me alert, forecasting questions that could be conjured upon a mere moment, on a slip of tongue betraying the half-knowledge, the imp’s spear ready to impale the imposter.

Not me. Never me. Always early. Always prepared.

I shifted in my seat. The glint of dial signed another minute, time edging toward the inevitable. I would be standing soon. I would be moving once that moment came, at the herald of the door handle.

Voices, murmurs, colleagues; their faces blurred, caught by the jostle, sucked into rooms.

I watched it all, sitting, fingers drumming, waiting and tracking whilst my mind traversed spires of thought, capturing possibilities, endless branches of eventuality.

Then I felt it was time. The moment.

I made to move, began to stand. The blanket across my legs shifted loose and edged down my body. The material was soft against my skin.

The blanket.

The blanket?

Why was there a blanket?

I sat back down, wrapping the blanket back around my body, feeling underneath as my eyes flitted from student to face to colleague and back to the material.

And that was when I realised. I was naked.

Again.

It had happened again. I was here, within the most populace of places, somehow having undressed, leaving nothing but a blanket over skin. And that blanket was loose, just a rag across me now, deflecting none of the eyes and voices of those who had realised and could look on and see and bewilder at the idiot barely covered.

So here I sit, still clutching nothing but this sheaf, too afraid to move.

And in the room next door there remains a class, devoid of its teacher¹.

Years later, still stuck in the dream. Image credit: Bing’s DALL-E.

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Thank you for reading, dear reader. I’m not sure how I feel about this thing just written. It was oddly difficult to write. Unlike the blanket, something wasn’t loose or apparent and it is a disappointing feeling to have those moments when words do not flow. But, here it is nonetheless. If it tickled or intrigued or some other such verb, then I would (of course) love to hear. Comments can be left, Likes can be clicked—all the usual jazz that can spread wonder, thought, critque.

1. It is probably clear, but this must be some trickle and blend of teaching anxiety + vulnerability. A heady mix of worry. A common mix, to be honest. I’m no stranger to Le Syndrome Imposteur. I wonder if the dreamworld me is still sat there outside that classroom, too nervous to make his naked escape, forever trapped under the blanket of fear.