Nightmare Thread

Is dream’s fabric but a woven nightmare thread? Do the mind’s spindle-fingers prick and pull by moonlight and cricket-song? Dream’s contents are a coin toss, I believe – though I’d like to think that mine skew pleasant. Today I slept the time away and allowed its sands to coalesce and crust in the corners of my eyes. Deeper and deeper I slumbered till the black strings were clear, crisscrossed and shaping an abyssal thing. It had gaping holes for features, though it had not a nose; the tapestry of its form was ever shifting, the strange dim light catching those threads in their endless back-and-forth motion. And its mouth was an ‘o’ as though to scream, but all was soundless save the hissing of strings like so many crooning cicadas. Nightmare – what a strange word; a steed for the dark is what all dreams are. Our passage by a sunless path.