Schizophrenic dreaming

She sweeps through 

the darkness, gliding like a black ghost, emerging here and there, only as 
a shadow. Delicate hands, tiny waist. She is miniature, though tall and slender.

The jet crisply cuts a line down the centre of the sky, piercing it and making cloud fall 

through towards the earth.

I think to myself... when I'm sad I stick to one story longest. It's as if I'm trying to escape 

from something in my mind, into this other world. For as long as I want to escape, 

I can write that story.

Fear is the worst. Nothing can prevent fear from taking over the body. There are no 

drugs that can combat the worst of the fears, the quiet, entangling fears that seem to 

seep through the skin and entrench themselves in the veins that lead to the heart and 

finally the brain.

Quietly echoing, my feet paint their way across the cream marble floor. A calm coldness 

radiates from the walls and domed ceilings. There is no one alive here. It is history re-

awakened, the past alive. Dirt and grease coats my hands as I slide them down the 

railing. A hot wind blows through the tunnel and I hear dull, distant roar building from 

deep within that blackness beneath the city. It's coming, though it's late. I've been 

waiting a long time.

Sand slips through the fingers and the sun warms the back. The waves froth gently onto 

the shore, and children shout and lay. Umbrellas and sarongs flap wildly in the ocean 

breeze, and seagulls swoop lazily.

The lift gives a short 'Ping' and the doors slide open at the third floor. The air-

conditioning hums loudly, and the fluorescent lighting flickers and zaps, casting a sickly 

haze over the green carpet. The hallway walks are covered in scruffmarks and notice 

board pins and blu-tack, and ripped posters and advertising, and timetables and 

notices.

The gum trees scrape and jitter over the tin roof of the holiday house. It is a house on 

stilts, built in the bush, with a bridge over the creek, connecting it to the road. She lies 

reading in the cool darkness of the lounge room, with its high ceilings and rafters, and

windows overlooking the swimming greenery.