Marshland

In the middle of the night, my dark and flaming shadow returned. As I struggled for consciousness, I saw the shadow standing over Gwynn. It was obvious his intentions were to harm her. I jumped on him, determined to rescue Gwynn. Immediately, I felt two hands pushing me away while screaming with fright. “Art, stop! You’re hurting me, and you might harm the baby.” I woke up for the second time, this time for real. I was lying on top of Gwynn, fighting an invisible enemy. I lifted myself off of her. She sat up and looked me straight in the eye. “What in the world is going on with you?” “I’m afraid that I’ve been having dreams. In these dreams, I see a figure, a dark replica of myself. In my dream, the figure is black with a fringe of fire, a kind of glowing darkness. The figure never speaks to me. He just stands at the end of my bed filled with hate. Tonight, he was standing above you and our baby. In my sleep, I tried to fight him away from you.” Gwynn had now gone from dealing with a fiancé involved in a troubled business deal and a career going bad to a fiancé with mental problems. I could tell that she was disturbed and thinking hard before she smiled and replied with a grin, “Our baby cannot possibly have a father in a mental hospital. I think you need to go see someone as soon as possible.” Then, as if to make light, she asked me, “Do you have any other revelations for the day before we go back to sleep?” Once again, I had to make a disclosure. “Well, there is one more thing. I’ve been having odd experiences. This experience only happens as I enter or leave the law firm or get ready to leave the apartment to go to work—at least, so far. From time to time, I have this feeling, a sensation that the world is going topsy-turvy. It’s as if what I consider to be up and down is now at an angle with the rest of the planet.” As if to make light of matters, I said, “I think it’s one more part of not knowing what to do about our relationship and the firm!” My quip accomplished exactly what I’d hoped. I had told the truth, but Gwynn did not take it too seriously. She thought I was joking. Playing along with the joke, she said, “While you’re at the doctor, I think you better talk about vertigo as well as little dark men with fringes of fire. In the meantime, I guess we better pray that you are going to be all right.” She gave me one last kiss for my gallantry in saving her from a nonexistent threat and went back to sleep. Gwynn slept through the night, but I was awakened once or twice by a dream in which I saw a pale humanoid figure of light shimmering in the corner of our room, almost invisible to the human eye. Radiating from that presence was a kind of protection. I did not think that my black apparition could find a way through that pillar of light.