I dreamt of baby dolls, murderers, and mosaic women.

I was laying in a toy store.

Behind me several dolls were displayed on tiny chairs.

I was watching TV when I heard the dolls speaking to each other

But every time I looked behind me they were inanimate, just sitting there like I placed them

except

were they scooting closer to me?

the whispers got louder, closer

and when I turned around they were all suddenly facing me with expressions of frozen excitment

I figured they must’ve been talking via batteries or something

so I pressed the “off” switch on the floor

(because in my dreams we have those, apparently)

I hoped the dolls would stop whispering.

I got up from my chair and a doll’s head whipped to face me

“I know where you’re going,” It said.

I’m sure you do, I replied.

And then I walked to the backroom, where I met a pale, skinny lady

Her face was covered with mirror tiles, like a disco ball but contoured to her face and more messy.

“I see you met the children,” She said.

Her voice was shrill like an old woman’s.

Why are they there, I asked.

“People get lonely,” She said, “It’s best you go back in there to entertain them.”

I nodded and walked back in the room, this time all the heads were turned in my direction.

They didn’t say anything, but their eyes followed my body as I moved to the middle of the room.

I picked up a necklace

Let’s play dress up, I said.

They didn’t say anything, but I figured they agreed with me.

In the next room the mosaic woman got up

her stick figure moved out a back doorway where she escaped to the streets

this part of the dream I follow her

She meets up with another mosaic woman and they walk down the streets together

we see a man pick up a women and walk away with her

“And that’s why you don’t trust men.”

We walk into my bedroom and from my bed I see the two peer over me

“Let’s tell her a story,” they say to me

then they start listing the murders of a man I once knew

“First he beheaded four nuns,

then he threw fire balls into his mistress’s husband’s house,

then he sliced off the head of his boss,”

and so on

and so forth

and as they spoke

I felt my back raise from the bed

I felt a weird kind of pain that woke me up

and when I woke up, I was on my back, arched from the bed

my back hurt,

and I rolled over to my side and started wheezing

now I can’t go back to sleep