Oneiros On US

Stream of Consciousness POV Workshop Entry: Consigliere Orthosomnia Billow

Goya’s Black Series redux’d

Three-word prompt: “Consigliere”, “Orthosomnia”, and “Billow”. Prompt by

Zani D

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Groggy in this hypnogogic state, the Consigliere, stretchy and thin but wound in terror, looks down at me as if I am a spider it can smash at a moment and he's sad to inform me that good sleep, real sleep without the playful arrestations of dreams— it comes at a hefty price.

Pay it I will. Pray for it I have. Demanded the real deal but constantly robbed by its release, I am ready to give up anything not to dream.

“Let's begin," it says; smoke billowing from its abysal eyes as if steam engine smokestack were put into overdrive.

Next to me the skin mannequin lays level to me outside of my bed. My prison. Hovering like it shouldn't and in an instant, as if alerted by my attention, it falls to the ground, sloughing to soft detritus and dandruff dust. Settled a new one appears in its place and the process begins anew like a kitchen faucet going: drop. drop. drop.

I need a cigarette.

You can feel yourself struggling, fighting the paralysis in terror but nothing moves, nothing; no thing; no hand and no toe move to command. Only your breath obeys your conductor whims and only then in heaves. You are aware of your surroundings, familiar as they once were but darkened in smoke thick as mucus. At the edge of the bed the specter sits spitting out blackened corpse-air like it's his job. Because it is. And the skin mannequin besides you goes drop - drop - drop.

As if reading my mind the Consigliere says:

“The price has been paid, three days of dreamless sleep granted."

Orthosomnia journal entry #3.

Hypnogogic sleep, they tell me, is a state between wakefulness and dreams. It is also commonly known as "paralytic sleep" and I hate it. Have been plagued with it my whole life, but at least I am used to it. Your body freezes you, makes sure that you cannot move so that in your dream fugue you don't go about and act out your dreams. I suppose those that sleepwalk suffer without it.

But it’s a terrible thing. You hallucinate, form proto-dreams around you in whatever room or couch or bed you were stupid enough to think you'd rest in. Auditory, visual, hell— sometimes you just "feel a presence"— it don’t matter it is forever bad.

The worst thing ain't even the sleep demons. Being in it means you gonna come outa it and if you come outa it you are going to be awake again. Lord help you if you don't fight it and somehow get to the next stage, get to dreaming because that's lucid dreaming and lucid dreaming means you gots seconds before you wake up again. Rinse. Wash. Drip. Repeat.

So I purchase Perfect Sleep. Snap the chip into my brain dock like it's a Sega Genesis cartridge. Remember to blow. Keep a journal. Make a deal.

Go to sleep.

Black, but it's the back of my eyelids. Hear the kinda snore come outta me where I’d swear I ain't sleeping if my ex-wife heard it. And like that I'm paralyzed.

Eyes are open to see everything though I know that they are shut and the smoke settles in. First from above like it's too heavy, rolling down the walls in my monochromed vision then snaps into the vissage. It wasn't there a second ago but the skin mannequin's back, and all of that detritus and dust it left behind from before here's too. DropDropDrop. Fast as my heart rate this time.

"I represent the Family of Three. The ziggurotten of dreams."

Voice comes through radio speaker broken.

Lungs ache from the billowing eyes, yet coughing is not permitted. It is then that I notice that the skin sand has risen, that the dropping has increased faster still. My room has become an hourglass and it has leveled to the edge of my bed.

"Ten days of dreamless sleep granted."

Orthosomnia journal entry #13

They took my final payment. Good, right? One last chip, one last session. Last one out. Company did not return my ping. Went and disappeared. Must've gone under. No matter. Got what I need just in time I guess.

For me, dreaming means lucid dreaming. Not all the time but most the time and I ain't been rested my whole life. Tried drinking. Did you know that drinking puts you under too deep? Sure I don't dream but the hangover robs me of whatever rest... it don't matter. None of this matters. We pop that last chip in tonight.

No warning no transition nothing but tension. I'm in my bed in my normal room and the next breath in and my throat burns; the room is full of dust and smoke. Smells acrid like burnt hair and my eyes water. Drop drop dropdropdropdropdrop. Faster, can't even tell that the skin mannequin is anything but a blur.

"The ziggurots without you, the Family is happy."

It's thin and tall now. Not a visage of man but of a tree burning. An impossibly long thorn torn into my sight— I can scream but choke on the smoke and feel the skin sand rise to my ears.

"The deal is made."

Cigarette smell in my soul.

Dropdripdrop and the sand is at the edge of my eyes. I will suffocate— but not from the smoke.

"Abyss,” smoke billow bellows as I am buried alive.

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Developed from

Edith Bow

’s Stream of Consciousness POV Workshop, where writers (and artists of all kinds) show up with a hoard of words and give each other three-word prompts. More details than I will give are in that link, but the idea is that you write line by line, giving sensory details around those words. I leave mine as unedited as possible, save for typos (I do italicize and bold after, also).

The workshop is also just a fucking good time.

I suffer from constant episodes of paralytic sleep and lucid dreaming (used to be three times a week). Though the word “nihilarian” was available (hello, A Happy Bureaucracy!), I cannot ignore “orthosomnia”. The “skin mannequin” happened, and it was boring.

Okay, bye!

-M.P. Fitz

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M.P. Fitzgerald is the author of A Happy Bureaucracy, a post-apocalyptic parody novel. He writes darkly humorous sci-fi for dream criminals and after that workshop, he’s pretty sure that his writerDeck is even more haunted because of it. Neat.