Seduction

Sleep didn’t seduce him. It was sudden. One second he was awake, the next he’d been ensnared by sleep. The warmth of his bed and the company of his wife had been replaced by an empty street; a suburb that seemed strangely familiar. Cars that he hadn’t seen for decades were parked in the driveways of homes that reeked of nostalgia; all of which existed under a black sky, free of stars. Even in the dream, he questioned how without any sunlight, things seemed so bright. In fact, it felt as if he was viewing an old film of his childhood, complete with requisite fuzz, as only movies of the fifties had. A faint voice called his name, and he turned, seeing his dead father sat on the porch of the old family homestead. This wasn’t his father as he last saw him, a cancer-ridden shell of a once powerful man. This was the father that used to take him to baseball matches or beat him with a belt when he misbehaved. As he approached, his senses were overwhelmed with things he recognised, like the unforgettable aroma of the flowers in the front garden. Everything that surrounded him, he remembered, except an unnatural hum that now filled his strange world. His father spoke again but he was unable to hear any sound as the volume of the hum escalated. He called for his father to speak louder, but his own words were drowned out by the horrible noise that had reached an unbearable level. It was the sound of a world tearing itself in two.

Her husband stirred in his sleep, like he did every night. Seizing her chance before he awoke, all sweaty and scared as usual, she pulled open a drawer from her bedside cabinet. Inside of which was one of her many secrets - a small transparent bag she’d wrapped in tissue. The bag contained several generic looking pills, one of which she removed and placed in a glass of water on the cabinet. She pushed the pill about the glass with her finger as it dissolved in a brilliant explosion of white foam, and as if on cue, her husband awoke.

“Nightmare again, Tim?”

“What gave it away?”

“Here drink this.”

“Thanks. God, that tastes vile, has it got paracetamol in it?”

“Yes.”

“That dream was horrible… It had my dad in it again. I think he was trying to warn me about something.”

“They’re only dreams dear, they don’t mean anything.” And with that Tim leaned back, closed his eyes and allowed himself to be seduced by sleep. The poison would ensure he never woke again.