Sin... Dreams...

Dreams, they can come true. Ask Gabrielle, she'll tell you.

How does it go? Wish long enough and hard enough, make your request to the Universe or your pact with the devil, and your dream will come true. Does the devil exist? Is he a horned, tailed red skinned individual who likes the heating turned way up? Does he wear a suit and take pleasure in stealing your soul? Or is he a little imp, sitting on your shoulder, forever arguing with the angel seated opposite?

I often wonder if I'm the devil. Would I know? Or is that the devil inside's little joke? I am the devil, but I don't know it, so that makes my devilishness that much more fun?

I mean. I could be. People die because of me. I hear their screams at night, in the dark. I hear their cries when I'm simply looking out of the window in the recreation room, when I'm not listening to anything or anyone and they can creep in to haunt me. Should I, rather than crying inside, enjoy the sound? Should their fingers on the chalkboard of my spine sound send tingles through me rather than shivers?

Possibly, but they don't and I don't.

I shudder and tears threaten to drown my soul.

So. If I'm the devil, I'm a pretty poor one. I'm less likely to take your soul as I am to take your last Rolo. Keep it. It's not like you can collect them in carrier bags, is it? Or store them in boxes in that cubby-hole under the stairs, where you keep the shoes you forgot you had and haven't worn for years. Souls with soles, I suppose.

Ernst Renan asked "Oh Lord, if there is a Lord, save my soul, if I have a soul." This was one of my old English teacher's favourite quotes. I wonder, if he had lost his soul (Renan, not Mr. English), would he find it under the stairs? The back of the sofa? At the bottom of his wife's Mary Poppins handbag? Maybe his Lord was there too, having a quiet games of Go Fish or Charades.

Dreams, anywho. Do you dream? Do you remember them? I forget if everyone is supposed to dream every night, but most only recall some or none. Is that the case? Your subconscious tells itself a bedtime story whilst the rest of you knocks out those Zeds. Jiminy Cricket must be one warped little locust the way he juggles with my consciousness - sub or not.

I wonder, does Jiminy Cricket have a little Jiminy Cricket perched atop his shoulder?

So. Dreams. A nightmare is a form of dream. And mine certainly have come true.

Thanks for that Gabrielle.