Last nights nightmare

I had another nightmare last night.  It was very slum dog millionaire-ish.  Here goes...

I was traveling with a friend who betrayed me.  We had to stop to ask for directions but the guy I was with had set me up (unbeknownst to me at the time, until afterwards when it was far far too late).  We stopped into a  house where he said he thought could give us help pointing us in the right direction.   When we got inside and sat down on the couch I knew something wasn’t right.  It smelled stale inside, like the doors and windows had not been opened for a long long time. I didn’t like the smell inside, it smelled of fear, deceit, trouble.  The furniture was old and raggedy.  Like it had been through the Salvation Army thrift store a couple times round.  There was a middle age man and woman in the living room that had a strange look about them. They looked tired, strained and had fine lines deep through their faces, built in firm over some hard years.  They looked tired, uncomfortable but resolved. 

I didn’t like any of it. What the hell was my friend thinking bringing me here?! I tried to excuse myself but the woman hauled out a large butcher knife from under her seat and told me to sit back down and shut up.  The next thing I knew her male partner produced a syringe with some strange foul yellowish-greenish colored liquid inside it.  A large syringe about 10-cc I’d guess. He moved quickly and methodically, like he had planned it out precisely in his mind and executed this maneuver many times before.  Before I could get off the couch he plunged the needle deep into my arm, up near the shoulder, the same place where we got our grade school booster shots.  It was like I watched it all happen in slow motion. A train wreck you couldn’t turn away from but was helpless to prevent.  I watched him depress the plunger into my arm almost in disbelief, it all happened in slow motion it seemed. I felt the bite of the needle, a face-slap of reality, sting of betrayal, all in the 30 seconds that passed before I blacked out.  

I don’t know how long I was unconscious.  It could have been hours or maybe even days.  Although I lost my sense of time, I had not lost my sense of feeling, my sensation of pain, both physical and emotional.  I’m not sure which was greater.  The severity of the fear was matched by the pain that racked my body when I attempted to move.  I decided to stay still for the moment, laying down as I was, and instead to just open my eyes to gather information on my situation. Where was I?  I was still in the dingy living room.  There were soiled towels laying on the dull grey carpet but otherwise nothing was different, expect it was mercifully empty at least.  I was relieved to be alone.  I shifted my eyes down the length of my body next.  What shape was I in? What was done to me? Why did I hurt so much, so tremendously? 

My clothes were still on me, but they felt different. LIke when someone else dresses you, it feels different.  My clothes were removed I realized.  Attempting to move again I felt agonizing pain in my belly and my hands.  I lifted my hands and looked at them.  They were mutilated.  Instead of my normally slender well manicured fingers I saw a vision of digits that had been selectively cut away.  I still had all 10 fingers but half of them had sections removed. 5 of them were stumps that had half the bones removed or cut away.  They were horrific, mutilated and too painful to move.  I didn’t understand the point of the procedure.  Why do this to my fingers? My hands?  This was just sadistic, finger bones were not valuable.  Where they crazy or cruel or both?  I’d never be able to play the piano or type again. And for what reason? I didn’t understand why. 

Besides the pain from my disfigured hands there was one more source of physical pain in my body which racked through my core whenever I tried to get up.  I forced my mangled hands to raise my shirt to look at my stomach.  I knew what had happened without a doubt.  They had removed my right kidney also.  My left side was ok, they were at least sympathetic enough to leave me one I needed to live with.  They didn’t harvest all my organs at least.  But then why did they do something so cruel and seemingly pointless and profitless to my hands??  I understood them stealing my kidney in a sick greedy sense.  I could deal with that and accept that, as shitty as it was.  But I couldn’t reconcile what had been done to my fingers.  

As much pain as I was in I had to get up and get out of there.  I had felt pain like this before.  I had an appendectomy several years ago and I remember waking up in the recovery room after the anesthesia had worn off. I was post-op and had no pain relief.  The severity of that pain had burned a place in my mind and I’ll never forget it.  It was this same pain and I needed to get up and walk out of there without being able to scream at the anesthesiologist this time.  This time I was on my own and I was getting the hell out of there no matter how much it hurt.  I left that evil place and all I can remember was walking out into the night towards a better place.