august philippic

ME: I had a hard time telling how you were different from earlier nightmares.

NIGHTMARE: I get asked that a lot. I’d say it was indeed subtle, my own artistic inspiration, borrowing a bit from German Expressionism and (because I love the textures) the Righteous Brothers. I feel that I had an artistic whole, a real organic quality that…

ME: But just to back up for a moment…

NIGHTMARE: …that recalled Fellini at his most playful and yet sad. I guess La Strada was my biggest influence. Such a brilliant film!

ME: Right, but what specifically was different?

NIGHTMARE: This was the biggest tsunami yet — a wave to convention in order to subvert it.

ME: All my nightmares have the biggest tsunami yet.

NIGHTMARE: But here, recall, that you were at top of the big cliff! And so, breaking down the forth wall, going a little meta, when you thought “those waves are just like in my nightmares,” you felt a false sense of triumph — as if you had endured it all before. As if now, finally, you could rise above and look down on your terror, as if all was well.

ME: Yes, I see.

NIGHTMARE: And then giving you this illusion of wakefulness, I of course produce an even bigger wave, one that makes the cliffs disappear, one that shook the building you were in and covered everything with water.

ME: And then I woke up. It was chilling. I’m wondering, I was speaking to somebody over the weekend who claimed she no longer had nightmares, that even in sleep she knew herself to be dreaming, and thus felt no fear.

NIGHTMARE: The detached observer. Yes, that might be your best strategy, your best hope. But you have to be very careful, because we nightmares are always laying traps, subverting your awareness, sneaking up again. We’re tricky bastards. Comfort yourself in your world all you want, but you’ll see me again, or somebody quite like me.

ME: You’re like a talk show before the writer’s strike.

NIGHTMARE: I enjoy my work. What can I say — I’m an auteur. One can’t strike from oneself.

Tags: visions //