Sleep Doesn't Come Easy

I had a dream last night. I call it a dream, rather than a nightmare, because nightmares are only what the weak call their own ambitions, coming back to haunt them. Pardon that, it's not true.

Anyway, my dream last night was haunted by something that I'm afraid to see in real life. Apathy killing. Uncaring murder. In my writing, this is characterized by a man named Harm, who kills others without cause, just simply because he can, or because it's deemed necessary. His life has been far from anything normal, living from one abuse to another, and he magnifies and transfers this abuse to those he sees fit. This is what I dreamed of.

I was walking down the stairs of my house, sort of half-aware of the blood-stains on the walls. It might seem timid here, but if you were to actually live through that, you would have trouble walking up in the morning. You would be a mess of both relief and fear. Anyway, moving along, I see someone I don't recognize. Or maybe I do. In the past I've characterized simply as "The Demon," because he is completely unfamiliar, but always recognizable. Well, he's just ended most of the human race... brutally.

Those that weren't intent on killing each other were met with a shortening of existance by this person's hand. Like Harm, he does it without reason, but unlike Harm, he seems to enjoy it. Like some kind of probverbial machine, I get drawn around the globe, gawking at the man's handiwork. All that remains of the once proud and arrogant human race is a few smouldering pockets of withered, frightened, pitiful beings. This burns a question on me that hurt until I woke up this morning.

Why was I spared this tragedy? Surely, I, if pressed, could have done something about this great wrong, but I myself was more or less unaware of what was going on until it was too late. I have fought the Demon in the past, and always triumphed, over such tribulations as abandonment (I merely pressed on alone), Subjugation (I simply broke the bonds), and most often, direct combat (in my dreams, I am not the frail, meek being I am awake. I am to be feared by all of evil intent).

This was something by far more sinister. He showed me my other weakness. Despite all my bitterness and hatred toward other human beings, they are my cause for fighting. I cannot be like Harm, and fight because I can. I must have purpose in life... and without purpose, I suffer.

This is why I was spared. The Demon laughed over his small victory last night. Perhaps he is just a figment of my imagination, but by all that is good, he is not something I trifle with. My sanity hangs in a balance between logic and faith, and just as the cold logic of self-annihalation strikes fear in me, so does the rendition of evil in my mind that balances all the good I seek to make.

Perhaps tonight, I will be strong, and I will bring people back to my dream world. It is rarely consistent from night to night, but for me, there is always myself and the Demon.