Aegri somnia

A sick man's dreams.

Three weeks came and went quite fast. Suddenly all the time in the world felt like the last grain of sand falling to the bottom of the hourglass. The heaving text hadn't moved from the centre of his wooden desk. Not even the cover was closed. The elaborate, ornate wording still faced the ceiling. Not a page had been turned, and not a word had been read. Junhong had done the research that he had set out to do, but still found himself fearing the possible consequences of him diving into the yellowed pages of that book.

What his research had yielded was almost worrisome in a way. One of the darkest of arts. Necromancy involved séances and other ways of communicating with the deceased. It had been defined as a black art, one practiced by witches and wizards. The mere thought of all that made his head spin. This wasn't the breed of magic that shined bright during his youth. It wasn't the innocent, harmless little tricks his parents would do. This was bigger, more serious. Something he never dreamed of. Perhaps what his parents did were just illusions. Nothing serious, nothing even remotely dangerous. What if those awesome ruses were nothing more than those performed at a seven year old's birthday party by an amateur magician? The thought was too overwhelming. He couldn't have been fooled into thinking that simple, insignificant parlour tricks were some elaborate and mysterious art that he'd never find out the truth behind. It made him sick.

However, despite himself, he renewed the book at the end of it’s rental period. He still found great interest in it, and though the idea of the black magic within the book shook him to his core a part of him felt as though he needed to open up this whole other world. Perhaps it was because he felt it was a posthumous wish of his parent’s. It could be them, bestowing their love of magic unto him even though this “Necromancy” was almost an entirely different magic. After he’d returned from the library a second time, the heavy tome went back to it’s position of waiting atop his desk, but this time it’s cover didn’t stretch open and reveal the swooping black letters on the title page. Almost as if it was a repeat of three weeks prior, Junhong found himself with a meager salad in hand as he settled himself on the couch and watched one of those antique, outdated movies he was so fond of. The book sat harmlessly on his desk and didn’t receive even a second thought.

He’d retired to bed shortly after the film, opting for a shower in the morning before he went to work. Once he’d done his nightly before-bed rituals and relaxed himself into his feathery blankets Junhong fell into sleep’s gentle embrace rather quickly. His dreams weren’t the typical television static, nor were they the memories he’d kept locked tightly in the back of his mind for only his subconscious to dwell on. He was haunted by the book. It’s thick leather cover reached out to him, beseeching him to open it and gaze upon the wonders that sat within it. He saw himself at a desk, large and lumbering. The chair that he sat in towered above the ground, and the legs themselves looked almost warped when he looked to the ground. What lay in front of him on that equally as tall desk was the book in all of it’s ominous glory. Items from his childhood sat around it and littered the desktop before him; the novella -- The Silver Chalice -- that his father had left with and never returned, his mother’s rings, still sterling and polished as they were the day she had left, and even the collars of his two dogs whose names he could no longer recall. Workbooks and homework and all sorts of other trinkets that he remembered vividly from his childhood filled the remaining space of the desk.

What was he supposed to do? Open the book that sat right in front of him? What could that unleash? His head spun with all of the terrifying possibilities. He could be sent to hell, lampooned, spurned. Is that what he wanted?

As if on it’s own, his hand reached for the frayed edges of the leather-bound cover of the book. No matter how much he urged himself to stop, he couldn’t. Perhaps it was the gravity of the situation. Open the book or perhaps face a fatal death. The longer he resisted, the more the legs of his lofty chair trembled. Even the contents of the desktop were rattled, and he watched as the bright red collar of one of his labs plummeted to whatever may lie below. Trepidation took hold of him and pressured him into giving in.

Open the book. That’s all he had to do. Peel back the cover. It couldn’t be some Pandora’s Box. It was nothing more than an old, thick book. His fingers curled around the leather covering and he lifted it slowly, tentatively. The first pages were blank as he remembered, but as he continued to turn page after page at the same rate, they began turning on their own. It was as if the book was turning it’s own pages at an alarming speed. Sketches, hasty cursive, mathematics, diagrams all flitted by in a black and white blur. It reminded him of the movies he loved so dearly. Grainy, unfocused and old.

He awoke in a cold sweat. The last thing he could remember was the pages of that book turning and turning and making his head spin. That damned book. He sat up and looked for it in the shallow lighting that the dawn’s sun provided. There it was, still sitting on his desk looking completely harmless. No towering wooden legs, no trembling desktop, and no flitting pages. It just… sat there looking no more imposing than it had before he went to bed. Perhaps it was just his panicked state of mind creating some sort of twisted, nonsensical dream. That seemed to be all the explaining that he needed.

In a feeble attempt to direct his mind other places, Junhong showered as soon as he left the twisting confines of his feathered blankets. As the hot water poured from the chrome shower head he couldn't clear his head. That book just kept appearing in front of him after he blinked. It was large and imposing and demanded that he unleash whatever was inside of it. Not even five minutes into his shower, he found himself kneeling on floor of his bathtub and clutching his head. This isn't what he wanted. All he wanted was something a little different. Whatever this was, it was too different. He had to stop this before it got out of hand. There was time before work. That book was going back and he was going to wash his hands of this whole affair. No more book, no more dreams, and he would return to his daily rituals as if it never occurred.

———

What greeted him on his doorstep at the earliest callings of morning made his chest tighten. In all of it’s thick, eye-catching glory was that forsaken book. How the hell did it get there? It's not as if books had legs and just walked places. It was also quite unlikely that someone had dropped it off at his house. No matter how hard he wracked his brain there was no clear explanation. Finally dismissing it, he begrudgingly picked up the book and drudged inside. There was no way he wanted to face the unfathomable fee the library was bound to be placed upon his shoulders if he had lost possession of the book.

The book again found itself on the surface of his desk. It sat, foreboding and watching him. He felt the burning on his back as the book just observed him. Even as he undressed and moved to the bathroom, the book still stared. It was unnerving. As Junhong washed away the grogginess of his thirteen hour shift he thought back to the book. His skin crawled as he thought of the book infiltrating his house, his sanctuary. His glass box.

As he retired from his shower, Junhong attempted to shake away his thoughts of the book along with the water soaking his hair. The towel that covered his waist when he got out did nothing to cover the awkward lankiness of his body. It was always disconcerting to look at himself in the fogged-up mirror of his bathroom. He felt almost… inadequate. Sure, he must have been pleasing to the eyes, but what would his mother say about him? Was he as handsome as she dreamed he would be? Or did he leave more to be desired. Was his life even going in the right direction? A minimum wage job, a nice apartment, and a full stomach. He was smart enough for college, but had no real motivation to go. The funds in his bank account left to him by his parents had hardly been touched. At first, he jumped at the idea of having a small fortune to spend as freely as he wished, but the words beaten into him by the nuns at the academy told him that he knew better. Save the money for emergencies. There was no use spending it on meaningless luxuries that he could live without.

Eventually he sighed and dismissed his self-evaluating thoughts. He’d save those for the next shower. Despite the fact that it was quickly approaching eight thirty in the morning, bed seemed to be the ideal place. And that’s where Junhong found himself not even five minutes later. He fell into the feathered sheets of his bed gratefully. Sleep was wonderful and welcoming. He was enclosed by the amiability of drowsiness and the quiet ticking of his desk clock was what ultimately lulled him into a short, dreamless sleep. Despite the rather brevity of the action, when he awoke he felt refreshed. It was short lived, however, when he laid eyes on the thick book still sitting on his desk.

That damned book. That curse on his existence. Just what was it? It came into his house and invaded the only place he felt remotely safe. In a fit of exhausted rage, he flung himself out of his bed and into the kitchen. As his feet slapped against the cold tile of the kitchen, all he could think about was that thing that sat in his bedroom. The refrigerator door swung open with all of the fervour of an enraged bear as he attempted to free his mind from the sinister influence of that dreadful thing.

Another lackluster dinner was what perched itself in his lap not even an hour later. It was something other than salad, thankfully, but it still was without the the exquisite tastes of a meal cooked by a loving mother. No outdated black-and-white flick graced the LED screen of his television. Instead, a young newscaster droned on of a new headline of some outbreak of a disease in an obscure town somewhere deep in India. Of course there was no relevance to him or the immediacy of his country, but it was obviously something worth some semblance of mentioning. Any normal person would feel pity for those suffering, yet his only passing thought was the peace they must’ve received without the burden of the book.

It was on the eighth night that the book had invaded his home that he had one of the strangest dreams yet. Junhong hadn’t dreamt of his mother since he was eleven, and even then those dreams were hazy and cold and he never really was sure if that was his mother’s retreating silhouette. However, that night’s dream was vastly different from the ones he could recall from years earlier. Since his second time of renewing that book his sleeping pattern had suffered greatly. No longer could he keep his eyes open during tedious work hours. Often he found himself falling asleep at the deli counter or while he was moving the broom side to side long after the supermarket had closed. That book kept him anxious during his waking hours and panicked in the ones he spent asleep. The dreams would be anything from him being placed in eery, elongated halls where the book laid in waiting for him at the end to him desperately trying to leap from page to page as the book attempted to close it’s heavy leather cover on him. The final, most impactful dream was the one featuring his mother.

For once, she wasn’t walking away from him. Her long hair flowed in waves as she advanced towards him with open arms. The smile she wore was warm and inviting as every bit as loving as it used to be. No longer was the landscape dark and turbulent, as dreams that she featured in tended to be. The sun shone through soft clouds as a light bout of rain fell from overhead. The only sound was the gentle falling of the rain droplets. The ambience was light, airy and peaceful. Almost as if it was a state of perfect nirvana.

When she spoke, her voice was soft, patient, like it had always been. ‘Nothing is going to hurt you,’ she said, ‘everything will be alright.’ It was as if she was speaking a lullaby. The calming tone of her voice could have remedied even the most stubborn of diseases. Everything was there. Her vitality, her spirit, and most of all her life. There she was, right in front of him, enveloping him in a tight hug. If it hadn't felt so real, then he would've been shocked by the words that left her lips next.

‘Open the book.’

Junhong sat up. His sheets weren’t soaked in sweat and his hands weren’t shaking with residual fear from his dreaming. Like every other time he had awoke, his eyes drifted almost curiously to the heaving book perched upon his desktop. However, there was no fear from the sight of it. It was almost as if all of the weight had been lifted from his shoulders and what was left behind was just peace. He remembered the dream. It was peculiar to have a dream with his mother. He thought that he had stopped dreaming of her long ago. What was it that she had said? Things are going to be alright. Nothing will hurt him. There was one more thing, one that he couldn’t quite remember. And then it hit him. The book. Open the book. Was that what she really wanted? Well, if it came from his mother’s lips then he really had no choice.

Junhong pulled back the covers and gave in to the freezing nighttime air. He got out of bed and, despite the coolness of the floor freezing his toes, he made his way to his desk. There the book sat, yet, something seemed different. It wasn’t threatening and imposing. Now it seemed almost… harmless. He remembered his mother’s words, spoken quietly and lovingly, and touched the cover of the book. Without hesitation he opened it and flipped past the first few pages. Uncertainty plagued his mind as he stared at the table of contents. Then, without any semblance of fear, he turned to the first chapter.