RDP Monday: PINCH

It’s a fact.

If you are having a terrible , horrible nightmare and you cannot wake up you need to give yourself a good hard pinch.

I am not sure how that works because when I dream, I cannot feel pain but when I am running or screaming in my dreams I can feel the air rush out of my lungs and I will get winded. I will try with all of my might to howl and roar and cry in fear but I cannot make a sound.

No air, you see. That’s science.

I suppose you might be curious about those dreams of mine, the ones where I am running through streets coated with broken glass and cemeteries with crumbling tombstones and mausoleums with their gates torn from their hinges but we are here to discuss pinching yourself to wake yourself up from nightmares so let’s carry on.

I was riding the train home last night- it was the last train of the evening and I was sitting in my usual seat looking out the same gritty window that I always look out from and I tried, like I always do to keep to myself.

A lady in a green raincoat, slid into the seat in front of me.

After she put her purse to her side she dug her phone out and she tapped her ear.

After a few minutes she looked up from her phone. She looked right at me and then she looked back down and she began to tap and touch the little screen in her hand. But she tapped a little slower and I saw her hand shake just a tiny bit.

She looked up again and  this time when she looked at me, her phone  fell from her hand and landed in her lap.

I saw her put her now emptied right hand over her left and I saw her pinching herself, over and over again and after a few good hard pinches I was alone on the train racing through the night where the streets are lined with broken glass and mausoleums  with their gates torn from their hinges and above the doors and carved into the tombstones is one name.

Mine.