Claire was slowly becoming conscious, after having a very vivid dream. In it she had been out for a coffee with her friends. They were chatting away and enjoying coffee and cake, when Claire noticed a weird smell. “What is that?” and just as she finished that though, suddenly gigantic tentacles had ripped the coffee shop from its foundation and lifted it up into the air. The weather had changed from a sunny day to a thunderstorm. The shop was now surrounded by an ocean. Dark green waves upon waves crashing all around. The sky was dark. She reached into her purse and pulled out a sword radiating with flashes of blue lightning. The tentacles started to tear the shop apart and when she looked up, she saw something unexpected. The gigantic squid had a face that reminded her of her mother. “Why aren’t you wearing more make-up?” it roared in a screeching voice. Claire started dodging and chopping off tentacles, but they were too many. The smell had increased until she could almost taste it.
Suddenly, Claire started to become conscious in the real world. The smell was still creeping up her nose. It was a mixture of various things, but the most prominent was the smell of sulphur. Her eyelids felt too heavy to lift. Claire had no idea where she was and started to get anxious. She tried to move her arms, but there was no feeling in either of them. More and more she felt a panic fill her heart. Claire could feel her hands on top of her head. “Good, they are still there.” When she started slowly rocking her body side to side, she could feel blood slowly beginning to flow back into her arms and then it happened. She let out the biggest fart she could remember. The familiar smell of her own fart crept into her nose. “I wonder if other people find it soothing to smell their own farts?” she thought while taking a deep breath. Oddly enough, it calmed her down more than she would ever care to admit. A few minutes went by, and her fingers started to move. The tingling Claire was now feeling was both assuring and incredibly painful. Like a thousand fire ants with knives were walking up and down inside her arms. First, she moved one arm down as quietly as possible and rested it on her stomach. Then the second arm followed. Ever so slowly she was checking her arms for something. She wasn’t even sure what she was checking for, but when there was nothing there to be found, the relief she felt was incredible. Claire started to open one eye just wide enough that she could feel her eyelashes disengage. Everything was still black, no matter where she looked. Claire rubbed her eyes just to be sure and opened and closed them a few times for good measure. She knew what she had to do. While holding her breath, she sat up and put her feet on the floor. The slight coolness of the wooden boards on the bottoms of her feet was soothing. Within a few steps, Claire was standing in her bathroom. While turning on the fossette, she took a deep breath and when she leant down realised what that disgusting smell was that woke her. “Oh, dear god.” She opened the bathroom mirror cupboard, took out the mouth-wash and gurgled for a good few seconds. Once she was done, she went back to bed to snuggle up next to the love of her life and fell back asleep. “I’m coming to get you, mom.” were the last words on her mind before she drifted off to sleep with an odd smirk on her face.
© Steven Bieler 2024-01-01