An Excerpt

I awoke to my alarm winking at me, loudly, telling me not to fuck about. Usually, I would turn it off and subconsciously roll over, back to slumber.  But today was different.  I pushed the snooze, and before I opened my eyes, grabbed ahold of the dream that had just been interrupted, diving back into the void...I was running alongside of a rushing river, the weather was a mix of darkness and daylight, a purgatory of restless seasons.  Snow was falling in heavy flake amidst a light mist of tropical rain, the sun shining loudly through tightly packed storm clouds, somehow finding breaks in the hovering collections of dark and angry precipitation....Booming claps of thunder erupted every few seconds, causing a quake of shivers that ran like an electric pulse through my body...as I ran next to the river,  the rapids beat loudly against the rocks and the water raised and lowered in a rhythmic heartbeat.  The water rushed at a speed I could not understand, as if in escape of a predator ready to drink up the life of the ferocious tide.  On the opposite bank a clouded figure ran alongside me.  Squinting my eyes I could not make out the figure.  I shouted but my voice was lost and taken downstream with the merciless water between us.  The image of the runner would change as I ran exasperated after, shifting from a near familiar into the next, still intangible to my straining eyes...Begging with the unknown, I pleaded, I need you, please stop.  Legs pumping as hard I could, muscles aching, yet falling behind, further and further behind.  Suddenly the sun drew away and the winter took over the sky.  The air turned frigid, as the wind blew harsh gusts into my soul.  The heavy flakes fell harder and faster, and snow began to pile at my feet.  I trudged on, insistent that I find the shrouded dark figure ahead of me.  The water raging next to me began to grow thick and started to slow and crack, forming from a wild stream into a vast frozen lake before me.  Losing my step and slipping, I fell onto the frosted icy surface.  Staring deep into the ice beneath me, I could see a world frozen in time.  An entire society of lost dreams and lives locked in a solid tomb of ice forever.  Scrambling, I peeled my warm face from the bitter surface like tape to skin.  Around me was only black, a vague reference of where the light left and the ice continued.  I was lost in darkness and suddenly I noticed that everything was silent, only the sound of my chest moving up and down as thick breath hung onto the frigid air.  Trying to call out, again I could make no sound.  My voice stolen frozen like the world I'd seen below the ice.  Far away across the abyss of darkness and cold, a thin line of light began to glow.  As if two doors were opening the light grew and spilled out upon the glittering surface, shining with intensity and warmth.  Inside the light my runner stood, the familiar dark shape outlined against the vibrant light.  I still could not place this figure, but it seemed womanly, my savior, my mother maybe, or a lost love.  She beckoned to me, hands outreaching, welcoming me from the forgotten frozen world.  I tried to glide along the ice....first awkwardly and slow, then faster and faster, sprinting like an Olympic athlete from foot to foot.  So eager to reach my goal, to escape this purgatory of cruel cold, of forgotteness, into the arms waiting for me.  Feeling the cold air against my cheeks, waiting, watching the light in front of me to grow larger, closer.....but it did not, reaching as I tried to move forward towards the light, it only grew farther and fainter away...eventually turning to only a pinpoint resting on the horizon of my cold prison.  I could barely make out the figure, still ushering me in, offering solace, offering love.  Tears began to gather in my eyes and fall, as they hit they hit the ice freezing my feet to the surface.  I tried to break my feet away, but could not, growing weak as my body turned colder and colder.  I begged and pleaded with my surroundings, Let me go, Let me live,  Don't forget about me...But she would not listen.  The cold overtook me as I collapsed onto the frigid floor.  My body hit the ice and streams of cold air erupted like Gulliver's captures and adhered me to the surface.  I began to sink beneath the ice, fighting, screaming, in a silent voice unheard to the world.  As I was overtaken by darkness, frozen in time, I saw the light of my future dissipating.  The tears in my eyes froze as they rolled down my cheeks, tears of loss and pain.  I closed my eyes as the darkness swallowed the light, the figure of the women was lost forever.....Forgotten.  I woke up with a gasp, unfamiliar surroundings.  A strange bed, bad artwork on the walls, and a musty smell I couldn't recognize.  Fear gripped me.  Where was I, who was I.  I was sweating, the bed was soaked with my nightmare and my fear.  Breathe, in and out, focus....I rolled over and opened a drawer of the nightstand next to the bed.  A phonebook.  I was in London, suddenly everything began to come back.