Mogrif

The dreams come as soon as I close my eyes. Never the same one twice, either; I know. I remember them all vividly, in brilliant detail...I cannot sleep, for when I open my eyes I haven't any sense of having slept at all...the only thing left is the dreams...perhaps soon I myself will become one of them. I don't know. All I know is the dreams themselves...you think me mad? Well, perhaps you are correct. Listen, then, and judge for yourselves...

Once I was a happy man, you see. I was a public accountant, James Fynch, Esq. I had a beautiful office, a good clientele and a steady income that was more than sufficient to see to my needs and even a number of frivolities. It was the year of Our Lord eighteen hundred and forty-two, and life was good. Then, without any warning, the dreams began. They came to me for the first time on a Saturday. I remember it clearly. It was May eighth, and a warm and breezy day. I had finished off the last of my work from the day before, and was settling into my bed. I removed my clothes and donned my nightgown, turned back the covers and lay down. As soon as I closed my eyes, the terror began...

Sweeping though the amber waves of my home oceans, the chill of the winter water on my fins, flashing up through the sun-flecked whitecaps to leap crazily into the air, spinning, feeling the warmth and then the sudden shock of cold and the great slap as my slick form crashes back into the spray of golden water...playing tag with my brothers as we sweep through coral and rocks, laughing at each other, dashing in to touch with our flippers and racing back out of reach in lunatic spirals, curves, bumping the reefs and laughing still, finally, exhausted, going down further until we reach great schools of small fish, among which we slash quickly, each eating his fill...

Feeling the gentle winds buffet my aerons s I float quietly over a low hill, looking down four hundred feet to the surface below and seeing the grasses moving soundlessly in the breeze...a storm, a nasty huge cloud of violent air, tearing at my wings and body and forcing me down to the ground, the hideous cold ground flat ground...I scream, working my body frantically, and actually brush the treetops before I break through the edge of the winds and float, fatigued and frightened, back up to the safety of the upper air, putting as many feet between me and the surface as possible...watching the purple and aqua brilliance of the sunset, seeing the two Brothers disappear below the horizon, barely touching as they creep out of sight, one gold and one bluish white...Sleeping, softly rocked by the currents of warmth thousands of feet up...

I tore my eyes open, panting with fear. Looking out of the window, I found that it was morning, although sensation had been that of only a subjective hour or so. I could find no way to separate the experiences from the room and reality in which I was lying. Shaking, and covered with sweat, I arose and bathed. After dressing, I went straight down the road to a neighbor and friend who was also a physician and told him of my experience. He toyed with his quill, and after I had finished, told me cheerfully that I had nothing to fear, as it was probably the result of fatigue, and that I should get some rest and try to avoid overwork. The fool, if only then I'd known...but to get back to the tale. I returned home, and went about my business, reassured for the moment by what my friend had told me.

But peace was not to come. that night, as I lay down in bed, the fear of the dreams came and I held my eyes open for as long as possible before succumbing, but finally my eyelids came down and I fell back to the pillow...

Running over the bare rocky ground of Homehold with my classmates, clutching my mock weapon as we all race across the cleared area towards the wall ahead, acutely aware of the red splashes appearing on the rocks around us as we dodge and duck...finally grasping the wall, panting, with my hands and hurling myself over only to yell in anger at the trick played and clumsily land with a great wet thud in the huge ocean of mud placed there by the Masters...in the barracks with all the others, laughing and joking and wondering who'll be the first to get it when we're through and in the real world...catching the com unit tossed me by the adjutant, screaming orders into the phone while watching the carnage spread out on the battlefield before me as my troops grind over the enemy positions and begin the slow advance towards the woods beyond and the withering fire coming from within the trees...

I heard a scream, and it was only as I sat up quickly and slapped my hands to my face that I realized that it had been my own. Slowly, I turned to look out the window, knowing what I'd see, and found the golden rays of the sun poking through my curtains and the song of birds coming through the half-open sash. I sighed, and got out of bed with the motion of an old man, fearing for the first time in my memory the obligation of going to work. I dressed mechanically, exhausted by my apparent 'lack' of sleep, ate a cold breakfast and left for my office hoping that the day would work itself out.

It didn't. I was too tired to complete even a quarter of my appointments before I began to doze in my chair. My secretary cancelled the remainder of my appointments and I returned home to try again for some rest.

Everything got worse after that point. I hired a nurse to watch me while I was asleep, and we settled down that night. With my eyes burning and my body aching, I climbed into my bed. I had already found that my location made no difference after having a particularly bad dream in my office chair. The nurse was bedded down in the room adjoining, and was to wake me if I made any unusual noises. Secure in the knowledge of her presence, I let my head down to the pillow and was almost instantly...

Awake, the cool morning wind whispering across my fur as I yawned widely and rose to my legs, walking sure-footedly down off the rock on which I had lain to rest the night before...I sniffed the air, and felt the faint curling odor of a small mammal lazily wafting from a nearby grove of orange trees...I set off silently in that direction, the pads on my feet dulling the noise of my movement as my tail slowly waves back and forth in the air...I reach the grove and hide myself behind a four-foot tall mushroom cluster, sniffing again...the odor is still there, and I leap with all four feet, landing in the middle of a small clearing and by chance right on top of a warm, furred animal who never stands a chance as I break its neck cleanly and begin to feed on the fresh corpse...slinking through a midnight land of ice and moon, seeing the shapes of twigs and bushes locked silently within the transparent sheathing...my breath fogging before me as I pad silently across the valley, looking for something fresh to eat...I spy a sleeping beast in a hollow in a hillside, and carefully make my way closer...I raise a paw, and as I do so it lifts its head suddenly, turning bright green eyes to me in sudden fear...

I awoke, again with a shriek, and looked about myself. I was not in my bed; rather, I was on the floor of the nurse's room, and she was looking at me in terror from her bed. I slowly sat up, and asked her what had happened. She was still frightened, but told me in a quavering voice that I had come silently on all fours from my room and had looked at her for several seconds before raising a hand as if to strike from beside her bed, and then screamed and collapsed. I apologized to her, much shaken, and withdrew to my room. As I had expected, the sun was shining brightly across the meadows outside.

That same day, while I was at work trying to help a client compute the taxes on his estate, I was surprised by a pair of men who quietly entered my office and waited silently. Determined not to be put off by this rude interruption, I finished with my client deliberately and sent him out. After he left, one of the two came forward and introduced himself as a physician from the Royal Medical College at Oxford, and asked me if I would mind answering a few questions. He then went on to say that my nurse had arrived in his office that morning, still upset, and related the events in her room to him. I sighed wearily and acquiesced, adding that I prayed that the good doctors would be able to help me. I told them of the dreams, all of them in great detail, and it was a time before I finished. They thanked me, and excused themselves for a moment to confer. When they returned, I looked up to find a rapidly descending net, which fell over my head. I was too fatigued to struggle, and was soon secured in a jacket-like affair with several locks. I was taken to a hospital, then brought before a judge and asked to tell him what I had told the two doctors about my lack of sleep. Enraged, I swore at them all, vowing revenge, and was hustled away to a small room with leather walls and a bed and dresser, where I have remained until this time.

So here I remain, unable to even tell anyone of my plight. I still cannot sleep, but I still dream...and always the same sort of intense hallucination. It has grown so that I am not sure if this is a dream also, if all of this world was a product of my mind...but no, it means nothing if it is or isn't, for I am miserable nonetheless. I had another dream, last night, of course. I wearied myself banging on the door and fell asleep in a heap near the wall...

To find the liquid swirling about my body, my fragile fins constantly whirling as I sought to remain stable in one position...sailing through the wavering lines of aquatic plants, and slipping among the poisonous yet silky soft tendrils of a giant log-shaped creature for protection from larger hunters...watching and not understanding as the waters in front of me froze slowly, and turning to flee from the chunk of ice bearing down on me in the current, and feeling the sharp rasp as the ice caught the last flick of my tail and then I am gone, flashing silvery glints into the farthest reaches of the waters...

I awake; I scream, I rise shaking. I am used to these now, although it is no less frightening. There is a new twist to the macabre nightmare that surrounds me. When I awoke, I found that I had moved across the room, and the furniture was moved about. While I was replacing it, I found something that sent a shock of fear through me...Next to the bedpost, which had been knocked about presumably by me during the night, was a small pile of delicate pale objects.

It was a pile of scales.

And here I sit, hugging my knees to my chest and wondering how much longer I have. The backs of my hands are no longer normal; they are green, and it is spreading...

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