A Rare Glimpse: Briar Dallas’s Journal
I wish I could dream of pretty things.
Hell, I wish I could dream at all.
I hear the fae talk about their dreams, and that place they can reach where their dreams are all reality. Amelia offered to take me over there once. I don’t think she understood why I dropped my glass.
I…just don’t dream like others do.
I can’t remember a night where the dreams were mine. People always know when the dreams are theirs, and what goes through my head at night isn’t mine.
I’m glad they’re not mine.
Every night, it’s someone else using me to watch their memories, like I"m some sort of DVD player. Someone else’s bad life running behind my eyes, someone else cursing, screaming or crying in my head. Another person’s nightmares, all for me.
I wish pretty often to never sleep again.
No one’s allowed to look in my grey sketchbooks. I hand my black ones around, and ask people to make little sketches in that weird, shimmery turquoise one Cori gave me for Chistmas two years ago. The grey ones are only for me, and everyone else’s nightmares.
In there, I put the screaming mice that ate my eyes. It holds the nights I spent in the trenches of World War II. One page is the night I spent, endless one that was, hiding in my toybox while a group of men raped my mother to death. I’ve lost I don’t know how many husbands: suicide, accidents, murder, disease. I’ve been dozens of women woken by friends, family and police, brought into rooms with unreal lighting , only to break into tearing sobs when someone actually says it.
Those books have all the nights in crumbling jails. They remember the rope tightening around my neck, the gun bucking in my hand, the shaking, red lines the razor drew on my arms. They have all the prom nights gone wrong, all the babies left in dumpsters, parks and bus stations. Sometime, I think all the horrors of humanity have been my ‘dreams.’ Abused children, holding broken arms and swallowing tears, stare at me when I close my eyes, and I realize that *I* gave them those bruises. I’m a rapist, murderer, pimp and drug pusher. I’m a priest with sticky fingers, telling a little boy he’ll go to Hell if he says a word. I’m a senator, zipping my pants and telling the fourteen-year-old hooker that her pimp gets the money. One night, I’m a mother, alone in bed, hearing my seven year old daughter cry into her pillow while my husband whispers to her about secrets.
Every night.
It doesn’t matter how many sleeping pills I take, or how tired I am. When I close my eyes, the dreams begin. Sleep isn’t much fun for me, but the makeup I wear covers the effects. I don’t think anyone really understands. Aeneas calls me a spook, Tyler looks sympathetic and Jonas talks to me about time healing all wounds. (Go figure *him* saying that, the hypocrite.) That’d be great, if the wounds were even mine.
Spider’s defensive, and Bertram’s nice. But even they don’t understand. Seraphie tells me to enjoy life, but I guess that’s easy advice for her.
I wish I was her.
There’s really no one else I’d rather be. Seraphie’s bright, pretty and fun. Everyone likes her; she has a job she likes. Even her fae blood doesn’t bug her the way it does Mariel. It’s like life decided it just *liked* her and went out of everyone’s way to be nice to her.
She’s got the figure I used to dream of for a while. I like being kind of shapeless now, in a way, but it can hurt, being so bony. I’m always cold, too. Seraphie has big green eyes, a pretty face, this cool, wavy purple hair and lots of confidence. I’ve never seen her even pause to double-think. The grass is always greener, I know, but I also know she doesn’t have nightmares like I do. No one else has to live other people’s worst days, their horrible times like I do.
God, I wish I could just *dream.*
Cori does, all the time. She’ll blather for hours about how she was a fairy princess, calling for her Prince Charming. It’s cute, especially considering she *is* a faerie, but when you hear her, you know she doesn’t live in the real world. Coriline’s never seen a twelve-year-old junkie asking if you want a blow, just so they can go buy the next hit. She’s never huddled in an empty building, trying to not freeze to death, and prayed that the rats wouldn’t attack you for the stale danish you’re saving for the morning.
Coriline grew up in a big, sunny house with other kids. She had Andrew & Bertram, and lots of good food; Cori had Bug, Aeneas and even Dia to play with, talk to, love and admire. When she was scared, someone was there to reassure her. She could have parties, presents and bright Christmas mornings. The scary for Cori’s life was scratchy noises, creepy shadows and a bully or two. She could experiement with clothes and read books in her room. Raimy days were just boring- they didn’t cause bronchitis that lasted for months on end. She drank too much soda and groaned about periods and breakouts with her friends.
I don’t think Cori’s ever spent a night praying to die.
I wish my life was all melodrama, like people have it online. Lots of people hating, loving, fighting and fussing. I wish it was normal drama, high school-college ‘who’s fucking who’ stuff. Honestly, I wouldn’t trade what I have now for anything. I have a few friends, lots of acquaintences, a home and art supplies. No one hits me, no one hurts me the way they used to. I have clothes to wear, and I have food when I can eat it. I have my own home, and I can make or create anything I want. People compliment my art, they don’t laugh at it. I don’t think back often, but every time I do, I thank whatever gods put me in Spider’s path.
Spider… She’s been so much to me: friend, mother, sister. I found out I wasn’t a freak because of her. She took me out of Willington and brought me here, where I met Mariel, Tyler, Jack. If there was anyone who I owed my life to, it’d have to be her. It was Spider that got me to try acrylics, bought me a potter’s wheel and got me pain medication when my migranes got too bad. I put her in everything: either her , with her smooth skin, symmetrical features and knowing eyes, or an eight-legged namesake. It was for Spider, not Jonas, that I did those oil pastels of Dia.
Dia… Now there’s someone I wish I could’ve met. I hear about her, now and then, when Iris isn’t around. Everyone says her name with such reverence, like she was some sort of myth, a legendary angel that we had for all too brief a time. She looked like one. I never thought angels had a definate form, but when you look at a couple of the photos Spider has tucked away, there’s a look in Dia’s eyes that makes you believe anything’s possible. She was apparently the sweetest person imaginable, and couldn’t say a word against anyone. When I first heard of Dia, I used to daydream about meeting her, about having coffee with her, and having *her* listen to *me.* Then Andrew told me that Dia had felt everyone else’s pain worse than her own. I stopped daydreaming about hanging out with her. I couldn’t picture her having coffee with me and talking, just her crying.
Sometimes when the ghosts won’t leave me alone, and everyone’s asking me to talk to a ghost, or draw them something, help with a paper or listen to them whine, I just want to run away. I know that won’t solve anything; I’ve been running most of my life. The ghosts always find me, and at least here in Brandenburg, no one physically hurts me. Maybe that’s why it feels weird to me, why it’s always felt weird. I’m almost used to getting knocked around. When people hit you, it means they know you’re there. Oh, it doesn’t mean they’re mad at *you.* Half the time when someone hits you, they’re not seeing you. They’re seeing whatever made them mad. But at least it’s contact of some kind.
Hell, I don’t really mean that, but I guess I do, in a way. It’s hard to explain how I can’t hug people without a serious mental effort. How the idea of kissing someone makes me freeze up, and how anything beyond that makes my stomach twist into knots. I’ve never had a boyfriend (or girlfriend, for that matter,) and I’ve never just cuddled with someone. I watch the fae do it all the time, and I can’t figure out just *how* they can be so comfortable with it. Spider says I’ve been through a lot, and all it’d take is one good man for me to loosen up. Riiiiiiiight. I notice no one tells Honoria that. It’d be a lot easier if I could fight like she does. No one messes with Honoria.
I never paid much attention to physical contact, but then again, I never had anyone around who made it plausible. Figures Jadin would have to come to Brandenburg. It’s not that I don’t want him here; I’m so happy he’s here, I nearly cried the other night. It’s just… I don’t know. It was so much easier when we were talking online. It was just him and me, no Iris, Amelia, Spider, Kearna, Cori, Seraphie, or Kitty to distract him. He didn’t know how skinny and ugly I was, compared to everyone in the damn city. No Brad & Kyle to get him drunk, or Ax to glare at him. There wasn’t all of this shit going on, and we could just *talk.* It’s hard to explain, but I felt more…secure, I guess…when it was just the two of us online.
Now he’s here, he’s real and I can’t stop taking little sideways glances at him. I can’t stop wondering if he’s as warm to touch as he looks, and how long it’ll take before one of the bouncing beauties of Brandenburg snags him away. I’m almost betting on Seraphie, because she’s been eyeing him hard, but if Amelia steps in to see if she’s got a chance (when Hell freezes over,) I won’t be surprised. I have to stop myself from warning Jadin that they’ll be after him, but when he looks at Seraphie, or when he saw Iris… Yeah, it’s hard to look back at the Human Stick after you’ve looked at Iris’s cleavage. I should know; I’ve drawn her.
Even knowing all that, I can’t help myself. I draw him constantly; it helps that he’s got a fascinating face. I’m anxious to get back to Brandenburg so I can finish my painting. It’s of him leaning against Rattles, with the African savannah behind them. Instead of just grass and baoab (sp?) trees, I threw in some city skylines, and lions with headlights for eyes. I’m working on capturing that look in his eyes, that wild look that says you can’t keep him forever, but you can carry a little bit of him for a while. The devil-may-care he tries to wear seems to clash with the look in his eyes, that look that’s so soft and warm sometimes that I wish I could wrap myself up in it, but I think I got it just right in the painting. He’s easy to paint from memory. Of course, filling half a sketchbook with him and Rattles helped.
I wish I could dream. I really wish I could dream of him. Maybe dream about holding hands, or sitting down over a cup of coffee and sharing a kiss.
I really, really wish I could dream.