Nighttime in prison is full of cat calls and howls from other cells, like stepping inside a zoo of exotic animals. Every so often, the night shift CO yells for everyone to pipe down but it remains quiet for a few minutes at most. I wonder how anyone gets sleep. Maybe they take shifts, wake each other up to continue the cacophony.
Silence is worse – when it goes quiet on the block and you can hear every tick, every scurry of could-be mice or rats across the floor. Not sleeping isn’ t such a bad thing, a blessing in disguise. Every time I close my eyes the nightmares begin.
It starts out as a nice dream, with Cassandra in the meadow. Like Elysium, a true paradise surrounding us. The meadow is greener than the deepest emerald, the grass shimmers in the sunlight, swaying in a light breeze. Cassandra races through the field, giggling. She picks a bouquet of bright flowers and brings them to me, holding them out for me to sniff. Golden hair is braided down her back and swings as she turns and races away. There’ s a flash and the storm hits without warning. Lightning streaks across the meadows, outlining Cassandra’ s form in the dark for a split-second before she’ s gone. No matter where I search, I can’ t find her.
My dreams return to the same image: a single, cracked headlight, flashing against a pile of crumbling rock. A truck leaning on its nose, shoved deep in the earth with a stream trickling alongside it and a cliff rising above. I’ d recognize it anywhere, even in my dreams: the Rio Grande Gorge. And at the bottom, that solo headlight, winking. It breaks through my momentary paradise.
The sky rumbles with thunder, air crisp with the promise of rain. I breathe deep, absorb the power of the storm’ s approach. Wind whips around me, pulling against my body, desperate to consume. It drags me closer to the edge and bits of rock crumble beneath the soles of my feet.
Eight-hundred feet deep, rivets cut into the rocks through years of erosion by the river flowing through the gulley of the Gorge. A streak of lightning ignites the sky. Heavy clouds roll overhead. At the very bottom that incessant, strobing light like a heartbeat. Like a soul breathing down there. It flashes against jagged rocks, imprinting on the backs of my eyelids and illuminating the gorge like a steady strobe, each strike of lightning revealing something new: crushed metal and shattered steel grill, thick black smoke chugging from a busted engine, the hood bent in. Calling attention to itself, the jet-black Toyota crunching further into the earth. Pushing its nose deep, the imprint lasting forever. The wick on a stick of dynamite burnt to the end, waiting for the spark to ignite in a burst of flame.
Rain hits like icicles against my skin. I am a crow watching above, swooping over the wreck to peer inside the cab with beady eyes. Behind the windshield, twin dangling arms reach out but never grasp, never touch the keys in the ignition. An engagement ring shines beneath the seat. That wincing, broken headlight, shards of glass glinting on all sides as if to say I’ m here, I’ m here. Come find me.
Instead of answering, I lean my head back and trail my eyes up. Stars cast a net above. I yearn to pull them closer or drag myself up among them. An orange glow of fire erupts below. The wind tugs, pulling me down the Gorge and I lose my balance, free-falling into flames. Spinning in a whirlpool of bright stars, the sensation of falling down the cliffside to the bottom of the gorge jerks me awake, covered in a cold sweat.
Dreams loom over me. A headachy, sticky fog wraps my mind like a spider’ s web. I
26 Cauldron Anthology