Requiem for a Scream

I’m powerless and yield to the foreign, still environment that dawns in front of my eyes. In a diner, like any other diner with the exception of it being situated in the middle of a desert, I sit across from Him. Looking down, on the table and then toward my grubby hands, I notice a trail of dirt on my blouse and suddenly feel sticky.
‘It’s hot!’
The waitress, overhearing this, nods politely. Her powder blue pinafore features a coffee splatter and funnily enough, I see the splatter and think C.S.I., retracing Grissolm’s last steps and whether or not the rare killer bee brought him closer to finding the killer from last week’s cliffhanger episode. Outlandish, yet appropriate, my thoughts are right at home in this world away from ordinary consciousness.

I look ahead, dare to meet his eyes and notice he’s wearing a trench coat, white shirt and black tie. His features begin to blur, and I rub my eyes raw thinking I’m going blind. The sun sears the windows, winking toward me as it flashes continual laser sharp rays. Then again, it could be paparazzi?
‘I know you from somewhere!’ the waitress shrieks. The diners turn and slowly nod. I’m in an apocalyptic wasteland, a futuristic realm dominated by aliens who have adopted a humanoid form.
‘Yes, she’s the one,’ an old man says, shaking his head, ‘she’ll never stop, she always ends up here…with him!’
The man in front of me is no more. A strange whisper alerts me to 1977, reminding me of the invisible man.
Why, thank you!
Did I speak?
He begins to fade right before me.
‘Oh no you don’t, you bastard!’
All I see are suspended clothes. A hat appears and he smoothly plants it on the spot where his head used to be.
A distant rumble upsets the diner. Windows chatter and my thoughts are interrupted by the shriek of thunder.
‘Honey, can I have your autograph? You’re a poster gal!’ the waitress sweetly says.
‘A poster gal for what?’ I say, noticing a trench coat flapping past, hoping to get away.
‘Why you’re part of the 'R' squad!’
On my ring finger is a gold ring with the letter R, but my name doesn't begin with the letter 'R'.
'We'd be lost without the Rejects,' she says and before I wait for her to ask me if I want fries with my order, wait, make it a sundae, I feel everyone’s eyes on me like a swarm of bullets.
‘You can’t skip out like this!’
My gelatinous knees fail to hoist my body upward.
‘Ooh, you don’t look well, dear,’ the waitress says, tapping my shoulder. I’m about to heave, I simply know it. ‘There, there, here lean on me and I’ll walk you to the bathroom…’
A piquant odor assails my nostrils, sewer eau de toilette from the House of Piss no doubt. The door slams shut, offering a back draft of Ew, sorry Eau, and my eyes close to fight the hideous smell only to open…

The old man smiles, his calm eyes meet mine and his puffs on his pipe.
‘I see you have a problem. Clearly, you’re dreaming about a paternal figure,’ he says, shifting his ass on the armchair.
My arms feel like they’re riveted on the antique leather divan. A rogue spring jabs my lower back and the old man’s white-gray beard is oddly familiar.
‘So Miss, do you agree?’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am the dream doctor and I know this may sound odd, I may appear mad but I feel that you haven’t dealt with your… father.’
‘I don’t see what an invisible man has to do with this!’ I yell, looking for a wall clock.
‘An invisible man?’
‘Yes!’
‘You haven’t mentioned an invisible man,’ he says, exhaling a puffy cloud of smoke.
‘A cup of tea?’
I agree to this. Anything to kill time, so I can cook up my next move and maybe get the hell out of the strange office. The doctor yanks a piece of cloth and the door creaks open.
‘Yes doctor?’
The tall lithe man smiles at both of us but his charcoal eyes ignore mine.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ the man says.
‘You were invisible a few minutes ago in the diner…’
‘The diner?’ the doctor asks, shaking his head. Disenchantment crawls over his face, beginning with his nervous gray eyebrows and ending with his pale fingers scratching his beard.
‘Yes…’
‘Hm, a fixation…’ he excitedly remarks as he bends over to scribble something in his leather bound notebook.
‘He was in the diner…’
‘Just like he was in the cinema, the restaurant, your hallway, the park…. Ahh,’ the doctor sighed, ‘I thought we dealt with this weeks ago.’
‘Weeks ago? This is my first time, um, the first time I’ve seen this…this…’
Sofa.
Armchair.
Notepad.
A shrink!
‘Do you remember my name?’
The pipe slides out of his mouth and his eyebrows knit together in concentration, as if to conjure my short-term memory. I rotate my hands and eye each vein on the insides of my wrists with renewed enthusiasm.
‘Sigmund?’
His mouth opens to smile and reveal a full set of razor sharp teeth.

I wake up clawing at my throat, screaming.

Painting: Salvador Dali