Broken

James walks through the door into his dreams. He immediately notices the purple rainbow that circles the clouds and the sharp blue sun rays scattering out like iceberg shards, broken.

The grass under his feet is long and sumptuous. James slips off his brown moccasins and thick blue striped sports socks to wiggle his toes in the blades. His mind fills with thoughts of birds soaring in the sky; thoughts of running on the beach without feeling breathless or having side stitch; thoughts of endless blue sky days and nothing to do but be. Everything beautiful with nothing broken.

In the distance James spots a flash of red. He slowly walks towards it, savouring each step. He walks in a zig zag pattern that flattens the grass in a z shaped pattern. At his feet is a long stemmed red daisy, lying prostrate and broken.

James sheds tears of sparkling stones that slide down his cheeks before bouncing down into the roots of the long grass. Lost forever. He quickly bends down and rubs his hands over the shoots, desperately searching for one gem, one sparkling tear stone to hold in his hand. Yet all he does is flatten more grass, causing stems to cross stems, in a chaotic weave. Broken.

James looks up from his fruitless task and notices a building in the distance. It looks like a castle made of sweetbreads and chocolates. As he walks closer he sees the castle is surrounded by hedges of black roses. Each flower appears larger and larger as he gets closer. A hedge of vast black bells of flower, each leaf pealing away from the middle like mouldy cow tongues and falling backwards into a gaping blossom. A black flower ribbon hedge that surrounds the castle. The castle is broken.

Each spire is pointless, the ends broken and hanging like brass candle snuffers. The windows were smashed, everyone, cracked or gaping, with circular wounds on shattered pains. The big green double doors hang perilously on single hinges waiting for that second when they finally break and fall into the muddy remains of a moat that sits at the front of the castle. Every tile chipped, every sill smashed, every part, broken.

Only a single ivy clings on, winding its way around the horrified ruins like a covering smog, each leaf and stem trying to cover the devastation, and smother the remains. In this castle only the ivy is un-broken.

James suddenly wants to leave this place, to wake to his magnolia room and brown spotted duvet. He turns and runs back, trying to follow the crushed marks of his footsteps in the grass. The quicker he runs the slower it feels. Each step becomes entwined by the long grass stems, grabbing and clawing at his feet and trying to wrap itself around his feet. He has to pull hard to continue to move forward, move forward away from the broken castle; away from the tear stealing grass stems; away from the zig zag path until he bends to grab his discarded shoes and socks and his eyes search the horizon for an exit. James searches from an exit from this land that is broken.

The purple rainbow have evaporated leaving only a darkening cloud that is falling slowly earthwards. James notices the cloud appears to be made of bowling ball size lumps, each shimmering like extra large midnight blue marbles, perfectly circular. As he tries to run quicker, it begins to shed these balls, spitting them out in irregular intervals at irregular angles. James tries to avoid them but his inability to move quickly makes this impossible. One smashes his right foot, crushing hard against his big toe, smashing it instantly. The pain shudders up his leg making him gasp. He tries to ignore the pain and use his instincts to get him out.

As he reaches an exit, a large midnight blue ball breaks from the clouds and smashes straight down onto his head. It crushes his skull like a walnut and leaves him broken.

M☻g