There's a murder of cyclopean crows spiraling above you. You look up to one you know hates you. Behind his eye there's a black hole. The black hole winks salaciously.
You wake up with a strangled scream. Before you can breathe more than once the woman sitting next to you touches your shoulder and you tell her your dream without looking at her too understanding eyes. She gives you a pill you know it's a placebo but works anyway. You fall asleep almost at once.
There's an anthill inside your bones. You sit very still in a plastic chair somewhere, not because it will do anything but because it's the only thing you can do. You try not to scream.
You wake up and your insides itch. You tell your handler your dream while staying very still. You take the pill eagerly.
You stand in front of a gigantic plastic castle, hollow and repellent. Something catches fire. You run through the maze garden that surrounds the castle but every path leads to the same fire. There are little mechanical matchboxes keeping everything alight and when you try to step on one your foot crumples.
You wake up smelling burnt plastic. She puts a pen in your hand and you draw what you remember of the maze.
A long-dead cousin you don't remember sits next to you on a bus. He gives you a newspaper printed on red and smiles with red teeth.
The shape of the chess piece on your hand is familiar and inappropriate. The board in front of you is thin and long and across it there's a mirror. You play a long careful gambit fully aware that the other player is aware of it. The pieces when they are taken. You notice you're about to checkmate yourself and in a flash of shame you stand up and throw a piece at the mirror. There's a crack and you realize with a shudder you've killed yourself.You're alone on a boat lying down on the deck. The dome above you is dotted by black stars in a beige sky. The boat whispers to you under the white noise of the waves.You wake up smiling and a different handler is sitting next to you. He says you have to wake up screaming for it to count and then bends over you.The eggs are too fresh and when you boil them they whimper. You take them out and put them under running water apologizing as softly as you can but you can hear the beating of wings the slithering under the floor the smell of rotten meat coming from behind you.
You wake up and your handler gives you the other pill, the one that makes you sleep without dreams. You know it's a placebo and it doesn't work.
You're hanging upside down from a very tall lamppost and as the wind turns you around a woman standing below you takes photos. Just outside the lightcone her bosses look in eagerly and you close your eyes to pretend you don't see them.
You wake up and very carefully don't scream. Your contract stipulates at least fifteen hours a day scrolling through social media but that's not why you start before your memory catches up.