The black arrow
I had the most god awful nightmare last night. It wasn't one of those reoccuring dreams, it didn't have the same sense. But it was horrible, terrible.

Why am I suddenly so afraid?

Why am I suddenly so insecure?


Justin and I had just moved into a house with several other girls, none of whom I knew well. They all looked vapid and somewhat "pretty" though not at all the kind of girl *I* find attractive. They were Justin's type.

We had just arrived at the house and I was upset that we were starting to live here instead of staying in our apartment. I still wanted to live on our apartment but for some reasn we couldn't. The house was cheaper but I was forced to pay more than the other girls who had their own room even though I was staying in a room with two others.

After we'd been there for a while, I realized that I didn't like or know any of the girls. They were all profiled in my mind, like sorority girls, and I had them each marked with what I thought of them. I didn't feel safe or at home where I was. In fact, I was terrified of conflict and lonely. Justin and I hadn't spent any time together in days.

This house had a fire escape that ran up to the flat roof and overlooked a patio. One night, I was on the roof and came down the stairs above the patio. Below me, I could see Justin (who for some reason looked much older) and another girl on the patio. She was in his lap kissing him. My heart stopped in my chest. I screamed his name and she fled into the recesses of the "sorority" house.

Suddenly, he and I were alone on the fire escape, which seemed to be surrounded on all sides by sky. I was furious, the anger rising in the back of my neck like barbed hackles.

"Why didn't you SAY anything?" I demanded. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He didn't answer.

"It's over, isn't it? You've been cheating on me." I knew he hadn't been faithful for a while. He had needed something I couldn't give and he hadn't had the guts to tell me.

"Yes." He said,

"Well, that's it." I said. "FUCK YOU. I want you to get the FUCK out of my life. But first you owe it to me to tell me what you did with her. Did you fuck her?"

And then he told me. He told me what hurts the most ashamed, secret part of me.

"Yeah I slept with her. She just seems so happy, so eager, she actually enjoys herself." So she was an on-demand orgasm machine.

My anger turned into bioling, suicidal, murderous rage. I saw her profile in my head. Her name was Bethany. I wanted her to burn.

"She was good." he said.

My world went red and then black.

"I never want to see you again." The words were forced from my mouth, cold and hard like lead.

I wanted to kill him.

The feeling was rising in my gut, the conviction that he had to die for his indiscretion. I knew how it had to be done. I left the fire escape and left him behind. He looked older, stronger, stoic. I felt tattered and hopeless and was beyond the point of breaking. Enraged beyond all recognition of sanity.

The image formed in my mind, a black longbow and a black arrow. That was the fate of his death. Time passed slowly and quickly, the way it does when insanity is the world. Somehow I had the bow, an automatic hunting device rigged with a trigger, not quite the elegant elvish weapon I imagined. The arrow was thicker than I thought, striped with white and tipped in razor sharp silver, black feathers bristing from the end. I held these things sacred to me.

It was night. I stood in a high hallway over an open ballroom. He was standing below with *her* and I hated them both. I was ready.

But someone came and saw me hiding there with the black bow case empty and the weapon in my hands. I set down the bow and tried to hide it, to talk to her. But she tripped the bow accidentally and set it off, firing it through the case and impaling the wall.

I suddenly had the image of the arrow piercing Justin, going through him, tearing him in half. And I was horrified. He would die, I would kill him. I was shaking with fear and sickness. I would go to jail. The rest of MY life would be taken away from me. Suddenly, some sense of reality returned. I couldn't kill him. I would go to jail. I would go to jail.

I put away the bow, contemplating revenge. Something slow and sweet that would take forever.

I put away the arrow, contemplating lonliness. I would never love again. I could never love again. But I was alone, so alone.

Maybe I could find someone to love me? I thought, for a moment, that Alex might have some trace of love for me left in his heart. "Stupid," I told myself for considering it.

This was the very rage he felt.

And then, in the blackness of my heart, I gave up hope. I knew I could live no longer.

I woke up, sweating and near tears. My mouth was dry from calling out, silently.

It was 7:20. My head was on his shoulder, I could hear his heartbeat. I recoiled. What was I doing here?

I whimpered.

"Bad dream, sweetie?" he said.

It took all my effort not to say, get away from me. I rolled over to my side of the bed and curled up into a little ball.

It's funny, the remnants these dreams leave.