Untitled (Avoid Bad Dreams) 

Assuming that the outer walls of the house are solid and that all the windows and doors are bolted tight at night, it will be safe to say that a somewhat restful sleep can be aspired towards. Safe, for a bit: from floods that plough down cardboard thin facades; for people who run with leaden legs away from an endless, breathless, anxious chase; without the sound of impending doom, even when it impends on others close by; with the net of rhythmic breathing; and so on.  

Who is it that sleeps easy? Their drone-like snores shifting the bedsheet away from their partially opened mouth, travelling across the room, playing with the curtains which hang completely still…because the windows are closed. Is it warm, is it cold, is it all? It is fine, on the bed, under the covers. The silence is deafening. We watch them, as we lie next to them. A glimmer of light shining wet blue on our cornea left ajar. 

The pupils flit restively underneath the soft sheathes of lid-skin: left, right, left, right, pause… The walls dissolve, the colours deepen, and a low musical note emanates from a corner. First from one side, then another, and then from everywhere. A chorus of sound lifts the unbodied body, breaking through the cloudy ceiling, its old paint flaking off into a dried plaster rain. It falls like the sound of breaking cotton. We can fly.  

What is the decision today? The demons of the awake-world stalk their way back to tickle the tired mind. The cold fingers of the empty stomach grasp firmly around the intestines and tug, tug, tug. Look away. There is always another door where the hunger is satiated.  

Open that. Walk out. Stand on the edge of the world. Look down.  

Every breath taken across the universe lives down there. Dive freely to the depths of storytelling, and glide past the sun-baked bougainvillaea that amuse the air around you, and then soar up to the top of the highest rock. The unbodied body is no longer a slave to known laws. It does not fear falling or being shattered into a million crystal pieces on contact. It does not slow down or get left behind. For that strangely elongated moment, it does what we ask it to. It is as if that one jump homed the visionary in an embrace tighter than love. How can we explain what that feels like?  

Tonight’s decision was good. Assuming that the outer walls of the house are solid and that all the windows and doors are bolted tight at night, it will be safe to say that a somewhat restful sleep can be aspired towards. 

Text by Saira Ansari