House of Lincoln

18

In the Black Uterus, the baby feels cold. It kicks around to be freed but is met with pain. The walls on the inside are too rough to scrape against. The baby cries out, but the sound drowns in between the inner-womb and outer belly. The womb moans for misery, and it sighs for sadness. It contains no blood, and it creates a child out of ash and rotten marrow. What will be born is nothing human, but a demon of malevolent evil.

~

       .gnitsugsid s'tI .egral os s'tI .traeh a ees I ,birc s'yliL revo gnirewot ,edisni gnireeP .birc eht ot dael meht fo sdnasuohT .birc eht ot dael lla yehT .seidob rieht hguorht gnihtemos gnihsup er'yeht ekil worg dna knirhs yehT .stoor gnikans ekil-niev ni depolevne si moor ehT .rorroh a etiuq ees nac I dna ,nepo skaerc rood eht ,won ti gniyrT !yaw thgir eht bonk eht nrut t'ndid I ,em yllis tuB .ytpme saw ti dna moor eht dekcehc ydaerla I .ti esnes nac I .moor s'yliL ni s'tI .emas eht lla resolc gnitteg m'I tub ,em dnuora lla s'tI .gnitaeb tahT .gnibmuht

       The world fades and now I see green. It's spiky and rough against my face. I push myself up and find that I'm lying in the grass of a park. I hear the grinding of swing set chains as they carry the weight of children back and forth. I hear a man and woman talking awkwardly as they devour a picnic. I hear someone shouting at me from behind. It's Clyde—and that's when I remember that it's Clyde's birthday, and I'm at his party. "Did you get any sleep last night?" he asked. I shook my head and replied, "I don't remember last night." He's about to say something but another kid calls him over and I'm left to slobber on myself. I stand up and almost fall over from my drowsiness. My body feels more fatigued than weak. My hands are sweaty from the heat. It's always hot on Clyde's birthday because it's always at the hottest point in Summer. The best thing to do is enjoy myself, and it will make Clyde happy as well. I march over to Clyde and his group of friends, and we play a game of basketball.

...

       I'd like to commit more research to that dream I had. To save myself time, I'll just call the dream "Heart-crib." Therefore, when I write down: "I just remembered a detail from Heart-crib," it should make sense. The question surfaces anytime the preternatural and dreams arise together. That question obviously being "Does the dream have meaning?" or "What does my dream mean?" Now if I were to guess, I'd say my dream has no definition to it, and all it is, is simply my fear of the house making its way into my sleep (a trick of the house? I'm unsure.) However, if I did consider it for a moment, if I dissected the dream (Heart-crib) like a helpless frog that lay belly-up in a classroom of curious sadistic teenagers, then what would that do for me? What helpful clue would I find—that is, if I found a clue at all?

       Well, I'll entertain the thought. When have I ever been considered sane? Would anyone really bat an eye if I started believing in dreams with meaning? I doubt it. So here it is, Journal. Here's my kick at it:

       "Heart-crib" Analysis
       The basic premise of the dream: After smashing a mirror, I entered through into an exact replica of my house. The sound of thumping was loud and ran through the home. Opening the door to Lily's room by turning the knob reversely, I found the room inside was covered in veins that all traced into Lily's crib, which contained a big gross heart.

       My Examination: I feel the "mirror house" is simply a novel detail that is an archetype of the "weird without meaning." The heart in the crib, perhaps, is the heart of the house. It may represent my desire to find the house's weakness, so in my dream, it was—even though I was ignorant of it at first—temptingly placed in front of me, and awaited my strike to murder and end my sorrows once and for all.

       Okay. There. I only made sense of Heart-crib so that my mind never bothers me about it. The mind always wants to consider every possibility, doesn't it? Well, I won't give my head the satisfaction of dissatisfaction. Lucy's gem she gave me sits on my shelf. It helps a lot. There are times I can't finish a task without holding it for a second. Speaking of Lucy, ever since she stopped me from leaving (not that that was her intent,) she's made time every now and then for us to talk. Often, we talk aimlessly about nothing, while other times I mention things about the house to her. It seems she has a very passive stance on the house, where she does acknowledge its peculiarities, but doesn't care enough to take any actions towards it. She's quite literally indifferent to it as a whole.

       After thinking about her, I got the impulse to see her. I walked down the hall to her room and knocked on her door. She answered and said, "come in." With that invitation, I entered and sat on her bed, while she hung by her feet from the top bunk like a vampire. She rarely starts the conversation. "Hey Lucy, how do you feel about dreams? Do they have meaning, you think?" She took a few deep breaths and relaxed her body. This wasn't a reaction to what I said, but just a thing she does casually. "Dreams have reasons. I don't know about meanings, but if they're caused by something, then surely that means they inherently have some value in them." She's not wrong. Dreams come from somewhere, and if they are random, even then they have to have a reason for their randomness. Nothing can be random without a reason, even if that reason is the fact that they are random. Sorry, that sounds stupid. I'm not trying to make some Platonic theory; I'm just trying to understand myself.

       "Thanks, Lucy."

       "No problem."

       I jump into bed and get ready for tomorrow. One day or another I'm going to have to do something. While I still have vestigial motivation, I need to come up with a plan. I've put it off a bit, but I've in no way forgotten. I need to act fast, don't I? I will, I promise.

       I just feel... tired. I'm going to sleep.