Trigger warning: The following work explores trauma through themes of violence, sexual content, self-harm, and other potentially triggering topics. Proceed with care.
Part 1
My mom was driving me around in a car, but her eyes were deranged. She kept trying to purposefully drive crazy and would laugh hysterically when I would cry or get scared. As we were approaching a lake house, my husband, Ethan, was waiting for us in the street.
She looked at me with an evil smile, and I knew what she was about to do.
I screamed at her, “No!!”
She swerved to run him over, killing him. I couldn’t stop crying and screaming, and wailing for the loss of Ethan. I have never felt so much sadness in my life.
When we got back to the house by the lake, she tried attacking me multiple times and would laugh anytime I got scared. I was so fixated on the deranged look in her eyes that I was convinced that’s the problem.
She jumped on top of a random woman at the house and gouged out the woman’s eyes, laughing the whole time.
I hit her over the head with a crowbar and got on top of her. I gouged her eyes out with my thumbs as I screamed at her about how much I hate her.
Then I woke up.
Part 2
Falling back asleep, the nightmare resumed.
Walking along the boardwalk in front of the lake house with Ethan. I noticed that all the people seemed to be shifty around me. We walked and talked, having a sweet time, but something still felt ominous.
As we made our way back to the house, I noticed something didn’t feel right in there. I checked all the rooms and everything was fine. Then I noticed all the people from the town were surrounding the house and staring at us from the windows. I went outside and told them to leave, but it was almost like no one could hear me.
I went back inside and started to panic.
Ethan was now just standing there, staring at me. Almost comatose.
I tried to shake him, and he wouldn’t wake from the trance.
I ran outside and started bashing in the heads of all the townspeople, but no one would collapse.
Eventually, I got the car, the same car my mom drove to kill Ethan, and began driving around erratically to scare everyone off.
No one budged. I began dragging people by their hair and stopping on their heads on the boardwalk. The look in their eyes always stayed the same. When I would go back to grab another person, the ones I had just stomped were back in the same place, staring into my windows. I started flinging them into the lake, and then when I turned around, they would be back at their post.
Defeated, I went back inside. This time, Ethan was lucid again, and we both started to cry out in fear.
We ran outside and got in the car to drive away. The townspeople started to surround us, and we tried to drive down the boardwalk. The people kept coming at us from all angles. Out of fear, I swerved, driving us into the lake.
As we sank into the lake in the car, we both just looked at each other with fear, sadness, and love. We began violently making out as the windows busted open and the water engulfed us.
Then I woke up.
Part 3
Falling back asleep, the nightmare resumed once again.
We were at the house by the lake again.
This time I was with Ethan and he looked so fucking beautiful. We were having a sweet conversation when my mom barged into the room. Different than the previous dream, but the same.
This time, she didn’t have the crazy look in her eyes, but was still equally as evil.
She kept telling Ethan how handsome he was, and he became bashful. She stripped down to her underwear and pulled the curtain on the window over her to look like a dress. She began dancing and talking about how beautiful she will look in her wedding dress when she marries Ethan. I told her she was not marrying him and asked her to stop.
She wouldn’t stop.
She kept trying to seduce him, almost as if I weren’t there. The more I asked her to stop, the harder she tried.
There was a large wooden wardrobe next to her. I became filled with rage and tipped the wardrobe over onto her, crushing and killing her.
Then I woke up.
by Thalia Graves
Purple Vanilla World, 2023
Purple Vanilla World 