The Definition of Dysania (A Collection of Short Trepidations)

𝑅𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟

Fuzzy images of bejeweled ballrooms with their glistening floors and bright chandeliers float on lazily by, unfocused in front of me. The music echoes distantly, too clearly to be in my head alone. My mind is a calm sea. There have not been waves for decades now, and yet I don't feel stagnant. My time is a warped wooden board; it creaks so I can hear nothing else—like now. I am swiped from my apathy and thrown into reality again with a nearly painful jolt of static flooding my senses like an adjusting frequency.

My nurse, dressed in a casual sweater with a lanyard to open the front door, is fussing over an old mahogany-colored radio on a table next to the bed I'm sitting on. The sweet melody turns staticky and sour when I focus on it. Dread slowly crept up my spine. The nurse smacks the radio loudly; it ceases wailing with a dying squeak. She mutters frustratedly until she glances at me and finds that my eyes and expression have cleared. She looks surprised for a split second, and the next moment, her face hatches into a wide grin. Have I been away that long? I already want to sleep again.

"You have a visitor, Vicky." The nurse says in a sickly sweet tune. Sweet like a sort of rot. I know it all too well, and who told her to call me that? My name is-

My mind hits a wall as soft as cotton but as unyielding as cement. Trying to remember certain things now is like uselessly clawing a door you're too short to reach—but you can still stand on your tiptoes and try.

And now the board creaks.

I am five again and in a pale pink, frilly dress and stockings. This memory doesn't have a tune, but it has the comforting warmth of all childhood memories: at least the good ones.
I can't reach the curved brass handle. I want to go outside—it is such a bright day. I look around the front room, and I instinctively skip over the dead mouse with a broken neck in the trap in the corner. My eyes focus on a stool, and it's light enough for me to haul over to the door clumsily. I step on it and am so close to grabbing the handle, but I hear a

Clap clap clap

In a sharp succession.
I jump instinctively and twirl around to see an old lady I can't remember the name of standing nearby. My point of view only reaches her nose, but that's fine, as I can see her warm smile and gently clasped hands in front of her yellow silk bodice. She kneels to reach my eye level, but I still can't see her eyes.
Her presence makes me relax instantly. She is so kind. I step off the stool and push it away from the door, and her smile becomes impossibly warmer.

Something is wrong—but I can't put my finger on it yet. It's like I'm a puppet in my mind. But in the dreamy haze of my memory, I am powerless against the flow of the past. I walk down the hall to her silhouette then it seems to widen so far like a gaping maw. Panic pierces through my delirium: I can't stop. I can't stop.
The woman reaches for something behind her slowly.

The fear crystallizes in my body, and color floods my vision with a new soundtrack.

Creak.

I am back at home, and I am in bed this time. My eyes flick over to the piercing glow of the alarm clock. 2:06 pm.
I became lost again then.

Who visited me, I wonder? I hope they were not offended by my apathy. I find it hard to care for much of anything to stay lucid because I know it will never last.
Why hold on to a world that you can feel slipping away from you like sand through fisted hands?

Over the years, the calm waters of my mind receded and created a ruthless mudslide, then turned the ocean to tar so I cannot escape until I wash up on the shore—where I will wander until I slip once more.

How much of that memory was a dream—how much was real?
Does it matter anymore? The old lady is long dead, so the house is likely long broken down and desolate—abandoned, like most things from my time.