Castles by Benjamin X Wretlind

my eyes off the one area my eyes were trained on, I knew they had to cover the room.
    One of them dropped on my chest and I screamed.
    The eel thrashed about until its face was inches from mine. My heart pounded and breath quickened as the thing stared at me. Was I next? Was God here to clean up Mama's mess, or was there something more sinister in its motives?
    It moved closer. I could smell dirt, like burying my head in the desert. It looked at me with its hollow eyes, opened its mouth and spoke.
    "Do you think there might be something to your dreams?"
    I couldn't answer. My mouth—like the rest of my body—was paralyzed. In my head, however, I could make out words. I don't know what you mean , I thought.
    "The singing men. Why does one of them stand to the side?"
    I don't know.
    "Have you asked?" It slid closer then screamed. Other dust eels dropped from the ceiling until I was covered in them. I felt their bodies against mine, squirming around on top of the sheets and under my clothes. They were everywhere, and I was buried in the middle.
    The eel on my chest slithered up to my mouth. I felt it push against my lips, and as frozen as I was, I couldn't do anything to stop it. It pushed harder until my mouth opened in response.
    The damned thing was coming inside me.
    I don't remember how I ended up outside the fence, but it was then I finally realized everything was a dream. Reality had turned surreal, but I still felt the eel on my chest and at my lips. Its screams still rang in my ear, and I could smell the dust.
    I stood in the same spot where Alfie raped me, the night painted purple and speckled with stars. Rather than relive that moment, however, I looked toward the Bus. It stood in the distance—a glow-in-the-dark headstone where I knew I could find the answers to so many questions written in the wind. Dream or not, I was determined to understand what God wanted to say.
    Thoughts are magical in dreams; I floated to the Bus quickly and found the carousel of singing men. I saw Michael among them, oblivious to my presence. I wanted to talk to him, to pull him out of that line and let him know what had happened to me in the last few days, but something inside told me to hold my tongue. I was here for someone else.
    The man I'd seen stand to the side on so many occasions was next to me. He was taller than I remembered, and his face was freckled and pale. He looked toward the Bus and wiped something from a bushy mustache. There was so much familiarity, and I can't say to this day if I've felt more comfortable around another man. I watched his movements and studied his eyes.
    I learned long ago that there is commonality between all people. The nose might be the same, the eye sockets sunken a certain way, the hair cut in the same fashion. Some people stand like other people, while another's voice might be reminiscent of a past relation. You may not notice the similarities, but you register them.
    This man in the desert—more likely than not, dead like all the others in the carousel—reminded me of myself.
    "How are you?" he finally asked.
    I took my eyes off him and looked back at the Bus. "I've been better, Daddy."
    I opened my eyes in my room. The dust eels were gone, the ceiling nothing more than a ceiling and the covers I had on me at one time were in a pile on the floor. Sweat covered my body and my hair was pasted to my forehead.
    Mama was awake when I stepped out of my room to wash my face. The clock on the end table read 4:17. She sat on the couch, her eyes trained on the television set watching static. I knew she'd been crying.
    "Mama?"
    She looked at me and motioned me over to the couch. I wrapped my robe around me and settled in next to her. I was never as emotionally attached to her as I was to Grandma, but when she put her arm around me I felt all of my problems melt away—the dream I'd just woken from, the nightmare of the week prior, the loss of Michael—nothing mattered at that moment but the touch Mama