Dead Asleep Essay Research Paper

“Dead Asleep”

I am walking through a damp forest that only allows light through the breakage in the vast tree limbs. It is rather hard for me to find a path to follow when there is such little light but I am compelled to go in this certain direction. I am not scared, however, I am being very cautious of my surroundings. I think of leaving the window cracked, but I know this section of the brain is still in reality because I am walking right now and there is no window to be seen. It seems like I have been walking for miles when I here a slight crackle in the brush behind me. This is not a heavy crackle; it is like the sound of a toddler wearing feeted pajamas tip-toeing through a flower garden. I swing around to see what is there, but all that I can see is blank space: no forest anymore, just a blank reel of film that is still playing in the projector of my mind. I hastily turn back toward the direction I was compelled to go in before but it is also blank space now. I hear the cushiony crackling noise again and wonder how blank space can crackle. A droplet of sweat trickles down my left cheek and my heart rate is starting to quicken so I know I am getting nervous. I feel the need to take a deep breath and close my eyes to try and relax myself.

I kept my eyes closed for probably about a minute waiting to hear the noise again. Not hearing anything, I opened my eyes with a little difficulty. Expecting to see blankness again, my eyes were forced closed again when I saw all the bright colors. It seems as though a rainbow has thrown-up on my blank canvas of a dream. When my eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, the colors were swaying and swirling very rapidly, yet also in rhythm to the song “The Wheel”. I spin around and around in circles trying to assess my newfound surroundings and begin to realize the bright swirling colors are forming figures. Each color: red, blue, yellow, green, and orange turn into fuzzy bears with bib-like things around their necks. The green bear approaches me as if he had something important to tell me; he began to talk, but his mouth only moves- there is no sound. He speaks a mute sentence, all the while smiling, and then turns back and continues dancing with the other bears. One by one they begin to join hands to make a train of happy “Dead” bears and dance and skip around me like I was the centerpiece to their world. I feel revived and more alive than ever before as I watch the bears and their perma-smiles dance around me. They break their chain and begin to do summersaults and cartwheels to the music, never breaking a smile. I feel like I should be dancing too, so I begin to sway to the music and reach for my lighter. I realize that it might scare these happy bears so I put it back in my jeans pocket. All of a sudden a horrible noise breaks the rhythm of “The Wheel”. One right after another the bears; first green, then orange, then red, then yellow, and finally blue melt into a pile of brown unhappiness. The puddle of what was once the happiest creatures I had ever seen started to ooze toward my right boot so I back away from it. The noise was still penetrating my perfect world so I started searching for the horrible place it was coming from. I search all over the blankness of my surroundings; as I looked up, it happens.

I wake up.

It is seven-thirty and my alarm has been going off for six minutes. I groggily press snooze and lay there for a minute trying to contemplate the weirdness my imagination just pulled on me. After that minute I pull my checkered comforter down, sat up, shake the cobwebs away from my brain, and start the day off with a smile.

Victoria C. Zeman