Dark Horse Arts and Sciences

Stacey Kent’s “In The Wee Small Hours of The Morning” playing in the background, I find myself in the midst of a darkish red room surrounded by big heads of brown deers hanging on the walls, staring right at me with their dead eerie eyes. Stacey Kent’s elegant jazz along with the reddish nature of the background induce a dreamy and surreal atmosphere before my eyes. The place reminds me of that big red room in David Lynch’s 90’s masterpiece “Twin Peaks”. I even don’t have any clue where the hell I am right now. Whether it’s a dream or I’ve just entered a crazy late night pub; from which even the last drunk customer has left for home; I’ve got no clue.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a shady figure begins approaching me like a tornado, emanating waves of fear and terror within me. And then it stops just in front of me; just inches away from my nose. With a whispering yet threatening voice, it said, “So, finally, you’ve arrived. Where’ve you been until now?”

Well, I could think of nothing else to reply to that tornado-like figure.

I have researched about dreams a lot; what they stand for; how they’re created; what they symbolize. For a certain time, I thought maybe this dream was a reflection or metaphor of my current state of mind; my current state of constant fear and stress towards coronavirus. Maybe the thought itself of getting infected by the disease has affected me so much mentally and psychologically that I’ve begun hallucinating and dreaming about it. Maybe the tornado was corona after all; standing before my eyes like a whirlpool of winds; ever waiting to demolish and tear my life into pieces.

Maybe it was the representation of my fright towards loneliness and depression; the fear of being left all alone; the fear of being alone for such a long period of time at the same place; feeling every second; every minute; every hour and every day of the clock; without being able to come out of that state of absolute sorrow, isolation and helplessness.

Maybe the tornado was a metaphor for friendlessness; knocking at the door of my consciousness; reminding me that it can conquer my mind and tear it into pieces and make me do something bizarre and unexpected.

Then again I thought, maybe the tornado was the symbolism of my declining career; my life after all this; laughing at my constant failures and setbacks of the past; laughing at my inability to perform anything significant in my small and worthless life. And the deers; maybe they stand for all the people around me waiting for me to fail so that they can just bury me with their meaningless and nonsensical words of wisdom ,and ifs and buts.

Maybe it is my fear towards the upcoming cyclone that hits our coast in the next few days; the lives it’s going to cost; the lives it’s going to clutch into its trap of death.

Probably the dream doesn’t symbolize anything at all. Maybe it’s just like any other dream; absurd and meaningless. Maybe. Maybe not. Or maybe I’m just overthinking; gathering unnecessary garbage within my abstract mind; just to end up being a storm myself and destroy everything that comes my way.

By Som Abhisek.