People talk about being naked in dreams all the time, I guess it’s a sign of vulnerability and helplessness. However I’m rarely naked in my dreams, for whatever reason my own peculiar vulnerabilities are never exhibited in that way. Except last night I was.
I was stood on my street, with the broken branch in front of me, waiting for that bright light to crash in from above. And I was completely nude. But I’m now so used to seeing the world destroyed – I expect it to happen – that my own nudity doesn’t bother me. What does it matter if I'm naked when some meteor or asteroid (or perhaps something completely unidentifiable) is about to fall out of the sky in front of me? We’re all going to die, after all.
But then I start to feel a creeping on my flesh, the hairs on my body start to stand on end. What I’m feeling isn’t just fear, it’s sheer fucking terror. But it’s not at what’s about to fall from the sky. The feeling I have comes from being watched. It comes from the sense that around me there are dozens of pairs of eyes staring at my naked form. It shouldn’t matter as something is about to fall from the sky and obliterate us all anyway. Why should anyone care? But the realisation comes to me that everyone watching me knows what’s about to happen too, and are preparing themselves. In the world that comes afterwards (if we survive) being naked will make you more vulnerable than you have ever been before – it will be good to be armed, good to be protected.
The world afterwards will not be a friendly place.
No comments:
Post a Comment