(Narrative)
I stumbled out of bed
I got ready for the struggle
You can't always anticipate what you get
And I tightened up my gut
I said this can't be me
Must be my double
And I can't forget, I can't forget
I can't forget but I don't remember what

In her dreams she was never any where she wanted to be. There were no clouds shaped like unicorns or talking ants at the picnic. In her dreams she was always running but she could never see from whom. There were always obstacles slowing her down. There was always torn flesh and there was always….always blood. And tonight it had been her blood. In her dream Holly could see herself but everything else was shrouded. She knew she wasn’t floating because she was running and her foot always came pushed against something hard and cold. She felt like something was after her but there was no sound beside her own breath and the breaking of glass as she went through panes of it. It shattered and the sound was like thunder. It shattered and she could feel the her blood escape where glass had cut, the pang of cold against moisture and the sticky thick syrup as her nightgown clung to her body like paper on glue. She woke when she went through glass and the shards stuck in her eyes.

There were always eyes. Awake or asleep there were always eyes. She sometimes imagined holding one in her palm and squeezing it until it burst like an unripe tomato. She wanted to pierce them just to see what sound it would make or peel them like onions just to see what it would feel like.

Understand, that Holly could always feel her eyes. She could always feel how her eyes felt in her head, rolling around in her sockets and the tears lubricating tissue. It was a sensation she was aware of when she was awake and she couldn’t escape it, even while she rested. She could feel every movement her eyes made. She could feel the nerves and filaments tug like reigns whenever she looked over at something. Even when she closed her eyes and tried to keep her eyeballs as still as she could manage she could feel her lids caress the smooth vein fields of the white outer tunic. And as she stared up at the dense patch of black that would become her ceiling when the day descended down upon earth she felt she could feel any available light being siphoned down through the funnel of her iris, fighting hard to make sense of sights unseen.

And she thought it was her dreams that kept her up at night.

She was in bed now but she was unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Her doctor had told her that she might not ever get a regular nights rest ever again. For some reason her brain activity had been affected by…..the accident. She sometimes read. Sometimes she would find projects to do through the night (Organizing her closet, organizing drawers, writing out lyrics to songs.) Other times she just lay still like she did tonight. Her arms were tucked into her sides. She could feel the blanket pushing down on the tips of her toes. She could feel the strap of her night gown, slipped down and tickling the top of her arm. She could feel her hair crunching slightly as each strand grinded together from the weight of her skull. After the accident she had alerted her Father that her skin was too sensitive. They had told her that she may experience extra nerve sensory perception until the memories of the accident dwindled. Which was strange because she didn’t have memories of the accident. They had explained that her body did. Some day it would settle back inside itself. Her father was a brilliant man. She wasn’t the doctor. Who was she too argue? But there had been tests. Lots of needles. Lots of scans.

She hadn’t told her father or her Doctor about her eyes. Holly didn’t want any more tests. She would rather keep the aggravation a secret because the flip side would be 10X worse. She reached up and rubbed her eye, perfectly aware of how the seal her skin had made against the moisture was broken only for a moment and that now her eyelashes were flexing back into their correct position. She needed to think about other things…but she didn’t want to think about the death of her body guard whom she called Jerry (even though his name was Paul). He may have been a GI-AIA unit but he felt pain and whatever life he lived had been extinguished forever because of her shenanigans.

She could still hear the wet slosh as the knife as it stabbed through his skin. She thought she had heard a thunk as the knife punctured the muscle of his heart and she knew she had heard his last breath inhaled before his body failed. The air had been caught inside but she had seen it escape out a bullet hole in his chest. She had watched curiously as the moisture of this last breath had steamed out into the cold autumn night. That was what she remembered most about that night; The death of a friend. She had been too absorbed in how the AIA body dispelled living to care much about the fighting going on around her.

Max Garison. M-m-m-ax

Their meeting had been brief before he had passed out and her Father’s men had arrived and whisked her away to be examined.( Fragile state and all that.) She knew he had been to the hospital. But she had not been allowed to visit. She needed to thank him somehow. She wanted to buy him a present but she couldn’t decide what she’d want to give him until she had a conversation with him.

And now she was getting a new Body Guard. This thought disturbed her. She was supposed to meet him this week. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Vincent Price, was laying beside the bed. Occasionally Holly could hear his collar tags clink together as he adjusted his position, or moved his head to see if she was ready and available to scratch behind his ears. The greyhound was her fathers but often he would sleep in her room beside her bed. He was a good dog. A handsome dog. Having him close like this made her feel better. Made her remember all the times as a girl she’d crawl in with her father and rest easy with John lightly rubbing her back as she fell in to a deep slumber. She knew how inappropriate it would be to indulge in such a luxury now but she couldn’t help longing for that distant comfort. Why did things have to change between Father’s and Daughters? Maybe if she could rest with him now she could actually fall asleep and her eyes wouldn’t irritate her as they were now. Maybe she wouldn’t have so many bad thoughts….

She rubbed her eyes again and twisted to turn on the light next to her bed. Vincent raised his head and his tail began wagging and thumping against her floor. She sat up and arranged herself so she was sitting on the edge of her bed. She bent down to scratch behind Vincent’s ear.