Sleepstory 2021.01.29

I dreamed I was working sleep-deprived at hellscape wal-mart, or something. There was this weird organizational system of teams and people were color-coded by their shirts. Sometimes something would peek through the facade of reality and remind me that the place I was in wasn't what it looked like, and these cracks in the visage only increased over time until I was working late in waking-nightmare land.

I had adopted an approach of apathy, my soul somewhat crushed and myself not intimidated by the threat of punishment. I mostly shuffled slowly, stocking shelves as assigned and never speaking, even when spoken to. The few times I did ever speak, my dehydrated voice croaked remorselessly. I was reported twice for "looking sad and pathetic" during my extended shift.

Before the shift ended (would it ever end, in this hell?), we were sent to the back for some team-building exercises. The veil didn't exist here, and the architecture became more Gothic. The teams were divided into categories of creatures, some human, some not. We took our seats in a grand theatre, and waited for whoever was hosting the show to stop having constant technical difficulties so we could watch some dumb team-building exercise. In the end, the audio ended up not working, so the entire lesson that would've been received became lost to somebody playing music over their phone to mask the silence as we watched the video.

After the surprise silent film, we climbed up the steps of the grand threatre and came to a dark, massive landing, facing a massive set of weathered golden doors. I leaned against some ornamental structure and tuned out the mingling crowd until my name was called to enter.

The room was dominated by a decadent structure of expensive metals and woods. I leaned carelessly against an engraved metal pole near the side of the room.

The arrogant lizard thing, my boss's boss, or something, sat atop the gaudy structure on a throne. It cackled often, easily amused.

It had prepared for me a series of tests to compare my person to all of the different sorts of creatures that existed in this hellscape in all sorts of capacities. I stood silent before the riddles of some, planked a stretch instead of doing push-ups against another, and continued my unending apathy regardless of all threats or circumstance.

Finally, after enduring all but the last of the tests, and passing none, the lizard regarded the final category of creature for me to be compared with: my own.

"You seem nothing but simultaneously pathetic and sad. I wonder if it would ever at all possible for you humans to be intimidating and funny at the same time. I've never witnessed such a feat."

As I stared at the beast, silently, with the same tired, squinting eyes I'd had for hours, something inside of me shifted. Indignance and rage slowly built up in my blood like molasses. I stood up straight. My lazy squint tightened. My weak muscles tensed. I took a single deep breath through my dry throat.

I opened my mouth and spoke, not with a croak, but with the chorus of humanity beside me:

"What the fuck did you just say to me, you little piece of shit?"

Something in reality cracked like a glass panel, some other world peeking in through the breach.

"I'll have you know, I graduated at the top of my class..."

We weren't in the gaudy room. We were in an open grassy field of sorts, the lizard alone and me with an army, all screaming in harmony. In the middle of the field, there was a pit of mud. The sun shone brightly through thin clouds.

We taught the poor creature our intimidating humor as we laughed and berated it, and poured terror into its shallow soul. When the ritual was over, everything went to black.

I woke up on the dark landing, alone. The golden doors were shut tight. Across the landing, a set of grand black doors opened up, a dim teal light pouring in.

The chambers of the souls of the dead were now unlocked, and I paid them a visit to say hello and goodbye to my dead parents. A small group of similar pilgrims joined me.