The World Below Me is Small by Lázaro Gutiérrez
I have this reoccurring dream—perhaps nightmare—that has been pestering me for months. In it I find myself standing before my bathtub. The water is pitch black but it invites me in like sin. I don’t hesitate and give in to the calling. The heat wraps around my skin diminishing my goosebumps, seducing me and taking me under. And I begin sinking deeper and deeper into a peaceful darkness.
I allow this darkness to engulf me even after becoming aware that I am—in fact—drowning. And the deeper I go, the colder the water becomes. When I try to swim to the surface, tentacles ascend from the deepness and wrap themselves around me tightly—pulling my body into obscurity with ease. There is no sound or air, and certainly nothing to see. All you feel here is fear.
When I open my eyes I am the leader of my own funeral march. Behind me is a parade comprised of all of the faces that were me in this lifetime follow. A brigade of all of the versions of me that I wrote, and in the front the oldest version of me smiles as melodies are sent to my body and the other versions of me seal the coffin shut.
“Fuck, you really did it,” the current version of me wears a sinister smile.
It’s the middle of July, the sun is scorching and I think—I have ended this reality. I look up, blinded by the stretching of the sun in full radiance. He dances in cancer season, my birthday is close. My eyes have been nearly shut by the burning of the summer heat; but my worries melt away.
I can see from the distance, the waters spilling from the bathtub flying over the clouds above—like a ballon. The parade ends as the black waters spill from the bathtub floating hundreds of feet above in the air. There is no one to be seen and there is nothing left but the echoes of musical instruments distortedly playing sadness. Deflated balloons scattered over the grass. I am alone. The black rain is gone but the gray skies remain.
.·゜゜· ·゜゜·．
And, in an instant all around me, the dream mutates into the highest version of itself. Bright clouds and grass burst with spectrums of colors like I have never seen. But, I cannot be found anywhere.
I see myself as the light and I—I think the light is the cessation of life, the beginning of death, the birth of eternal dreaming. The awakening of my higher conscience in a new reality I have crafted myself.
Moments later the band has reappeared and now it marches to the songs I sang in this incarnation. When they halt to bury me, I am not in; I am not inside the coffin. Thousands of flowers severed for what?
They brought out the most perfect clouds and drew the ethers like a watercolor painting, and I am not there. I am still alive and watching from above as they celebrate my ascension. I have risen from dark waters, and now I float in the heat of my bathtub no longer questioning my reality, flying over mortals—like little ants in the distance—I watch their every move. The feeling of knowing that I am the only one in control takes over my body electrifying me, and I am on top of the world. The world below me is small.
The waters have cooled down, my eyes open and I am back to this reality. Covered in sweat and with a heart that palpitates with relief, I take in a deep breath. This world is dark but I didn’t want to let it go. The screen on my phone reads 333.
“Get your shit together,” my mind tells me.
I am still breathing.