Ruminations

     I've been ruminating recently on the past. Bad habit, I know. Thankfully, I don't do it often.
Yes, there are reasons why. One specific reason why. I keep waking up sweating, out of breath, my heart's racing, and I cannot move. My body does not respond to me. I feel suffocated, claustrophobic. No surprise considering the dream that usually precedes these symptoms.
Do I go into the dream? I keep telling myself "no," that the less emotionality, the less information disclosed, the better. And I think I should if only because I do not know any of you. You can hold it against me for all I care and it will not mean a damn thing to me. With the others, it would. They'd know... and I've been sure to keep all of my past as much a mystery as possible.
So, the dream. I will abbreviate. I know where it takes place -- a civic building, somewhere below the level of the streets. I'm in a niche in the wall, pinned there, a board across so that I cannot see, or rather, so they do not have to see me. Only my legs hang out and they too are pinned. Pinned while they are beaten and burned and tortured in various ways, until they are broken, until they are so mangled that there is no hope of standing on them. I know it's been three days since I've been put there, starved, naked, bleeding from previous means of persuasion. The dried blood makes me stick to the wall. My hair is matted, filthy, afixed to my face from the dried blood. Sometimes it alters; sometimes I am standing with my hand forced in fire, looking at the niche which I know is my next destination. But whatever it is, I know what comes only gets worse...
I hear their voices, shouting at me, demanding I condemn myself. I hear them... all the time.

I abhor thinking about my past, talking about it, pulling it apart like some object to be dissected and studied for the purpose of understanding. No. No, it should just be taken and accepted and tossed away. I do not want it. I do not care if I understand my past or not. Whatever else it is, it's gone. And there is nothing I can do. Yet, try as I might to move on and discard it (yes, unlike so many others, I do not cling), from Rome to the colonies, to Dark Europe, from Taberleigh to Alaska and from Alaska to New Orleans and back to Alaska, it has haunted me. I try for a new start. With Astrid, I hoped for a new start. And each time, I am disappointed again by the memories that masquerade as nightmares.

I think I am worrying Astrid. I get up so often, leave for good, end up pacing the halls all the rest of the night. She has not said anything to me yet. She knows what goes on in my head. If I was her, I am not sure I would want to know what the problem is. I'm sure she'll ask me soon. I don't know what I'll say to her.


Look, I don't want any shit for this entry. Got it?
Yeah, I'm sure you senseless creatins out there would like to point a finger at this and call it an "oh woe is me" moment, but this is my journal and you are just the fortunate spectators who have no right to say anything. So, feel free to grab the popcorn, sit back, read, appreciate and then appropriately comment, slink away, or die.