[In dirt.]
[It's dirt. It's the ever-dream. It's the always. It's the unending, repeated, recurring dirt.
It always begins the same way. Dirt on the tongue, rich and loamy and full of nitrients from decay, dark and ready to serve new life. But on the tongue it is claustrophobic, choking. It's not on his back - he is not buried - but it's coming out of him in heaves. It is pouring from his body. He can feel it under his eyelids.
When he can breathe, when the dirt is out, he cannot draw in breath. He doesn't choke, doesn't feel the pressure of a lack of air, but the mechanism of breath is broken, like a bellows snapped. He cannot speak. He touches the back of his head, finds it open and wet, and feels for the damage to his brain. Something important has been crushed.
Slender pines with no needles go on into the distance like a troop of close skeletons. Beyond them is a red light.
He touches it, touches the light. Like his skull, it is soft, and warm, and red. It climbs into his skin. It dogs under his fingernails and spreads into his limbic system. It coats his lungs and it is so very thick, and it cushions the air. It cushions the world.
He sinks under it, comfortable, and he breathes, finally, as it clambers unsteadily across his eyes.]