Primordial

“There is this recurring dream I’ve had since childhood. I had it again last night.”

“Yes… tell me about this dream of yours… what do you remember?” He’s impeccably dressed in tweed. I remember thinking to myself: “a bearded shrink dressed in tweed? Wow, how utterly fitting and… perfect.”

“Well, I’m standing on a beach….”

“Yes… go on.” He leans forward giving a well-rehearsed pensive look as he casually and half-heartedly pushes his glasses higher on his hooked nose.

“I’m standing on a beach all alone. The sky is red and the sand is black. Littered all about are dead horseshoe crabs. They lie on their backs with their stiff, spiny legs forever pointed skyward. There are hundreds…”

“Uh-huh… what else do you remember?” He’s writing something in his legal pad. I wish I knew what he was writing. I wish I knew what was wrong with me.

“The stench... is unendurable. It reeks of decay, sulfur, and salt. I hear the waves crashing upon the rocky shoals. They’re easily around 30 feet high.”

“Interesting…. What color is the water? Do you remember this?”

“Yes, the water is black; black as obsidian. The sky is blood red and the sea is black.”

“mmmm…” More scribbling.

“I gaze out toward the horizon… out toward the wide expanse of the ocean. It’s so large and limitless. I feel vertigo except the feeling is not caused by standing at a great vertical height, but by standing on a horizontal axis that stretches on and on forever and ever. It’s a reverse vertigo. Would that be called horzigo?”

“Heh, Heh, clever. Why I don’t know. I’ve never … ”

“So beyond the waves… out in the black churning waters of this strange, unnamed ocean I hear the most horrible sounds - like the echoing songs of whales but corrupted. It’s so dark, words cannot describe the horror I feel upon hearing this sound… so primitive. It’s the ear-rupturing wail of the nameless ones. Prehistoric leviathans that patrolled the savage oceans when the Earth was young… before the age of mammals… before the age of man, which is but a mere drop in the elusive eternity of existence. Long ago, before recorded time, these beasts ruled the seas, as their scaly brethren ruled the lands. I cannot see them but I know they’re out there… hundreds of them. Some closer to my vantage point than others but they are all out there waiting…. “

“O.K Hermes I need you to slow down…. What are they waiting for?” He’s interested now... or worried. He uneasily shifts in his very expensive chair. The only sound in the room is the creaking of the rich leather… and the far-off honking of some very impatient, very pissed off cabbie somewhere.

“Me. They wait for me to wade out into the tumultuous waves. They possess teeth the size of my open hand… eyes the size of your dictionary sitting on your desk over there. The smallest of them is 100 feet in length. I cannot see them as the water is too dark but I see their silhouettes. I see their serpentine necks as they unnaturally circle. I undoubtedly sense them. I can also sense the killers.”

“The… killers?” He nervously clicks the end of his ballpoint three times. Why only three times? Why not four or two? Is this some sort of code? Will a group of large men dressed in white scrubs suddenly burst out from the back room, syringes in hand?

“I see their dorsal fins. They’re sharks, sir.”

“Sharks?”

“ Prehistoric sharks easily 300 feet in length. Not Megaladons either, these creatures remain undocumented and un-cataloged. Or perhaps they never existed… the terrible stuff of nightmare. MY nightmares. The killers feast upon the nameless ones. Or they simply murder. They kill with glee and the sky is filled with the screeching cries of the nameless ones. These screams can be heard in heaven where the angels debate and bicker amongst themselves. The Killers will leave the gargantuan carcasses afloat whilst their offspring come out of hiding like grotesque schools to feast, always cautious for the nameless ones hunt the younglings who in turn feast on their deceased brethren. Perhaps this is why the ocean runs reddish-black, I don’t know. The killers… they too wait. They forever circle… with cold eyes forever fixed forward toward the dry land while an army of parasitic worms attach themselves to their sandpapery skin and drink their thick blood…”

Silence.

“And then? What happens next Hermes?”

I turn away and gaze out the window. I see the park across the street where some children play. Such a beautiful scene. It’s so peaceful. One particular boy catches my attention - a beautiful little boy with black hair, brown eyes, and olive skin. He’s sitting by himself in the sand next to the merry-go-round, his knees raised to his chest and tears streaming down his face from a scraped arm. He’s by himself dealing with the pain and the confusion and the abject horror caused by the sight of blood. Where the fuck is his mother or father? Why is he just sitting there by himself?

“ *Ahem*, Hermes?”

“ ... Yeah, what happens next? Well... nothing... yet. I will walk out into the black ocean. It’s time to face my demons. Night has fallen and the water gently stirs...

...and I am still completely alone.”