Scribbles
an excerpt

The face. It was smiling. It always wore a pleasant, friendly smile. At the beginning.

She couldn't tell exactly what the face looked like, could only see the eyes and the smile. And could hear the creaking of the rocking chair.

Creak, shub, creak, shub. Calm, soothing, rocking, rocking.

And, so imperceptibly she couldn't tell exactly when it happened, the rocking changed. It became forceful, purposeful, as the smile on the unseeable face took on a malevolence where the friendliness had previously been evident.

Meg stood in the whiteness surrounding the rocker and its inhabitant, as always an observer, not a participant in the dream. And as the creaking faded, the evil grinning smile melted away, leaving only the quietness, the whiteness, everywhere the whiteness.

The oppressive whiteness.

And then began the scribbling, as though a giant invisible pencil in the hand of an enormous unseen child began to draw across the expanse of white, slowly at first, languidly.

Circling, streaking, curling.

Black graphite scribbles appeared on the whiteness, marking the blankness into a darkening confusion of lines and circles. The unseen hand drew the scribbles faster, adamant, forceful. Gradually, the circling, curling graphite strokes lengthened, grew darker.

Meg felt a tightening in her chest. Her waking anger had disappeared in the dream fear, the fear which gripped her unmercifully, paralyzed her throat so that she could not cry out.