[Editor’s Choice: Dream Girl – Psychological Thriller Short Story]
She cut a piece from my heart and picked it by inserting the tip of the blade of a long knife. Very delicately she straightened the knife to carry the blood sprinkling meat piece in to her mouth. A red stream of blood, emanating from the tip and travelling on the shining sharp steel blade, filled the groove of the five corners star sign marked on the blade just before the wooden handle of the knife. Few blood drops spilled from her lips’ joint at the right side as soon as she started chewing the piece. She smiled as she gulped the meat.
I felt a sharp cut on my chest and found it too heavy to breathe. I opened my eyes. Oh my god… it was dream – a nightmare. After realizing that it was a dream, I became more tensed and restless. Digital watch on the side table showed 5:30 AM, Wednesday, 13th February 2013. I started sweating profusely. It was my thirteenth dream. I had maximum eighteen and half hours to live if this dream would also come true as did my last twelve dreams, which I dreamed on the thirteenth day of every month since I met her on Friday the 13th, January 2012.
I completely forgot her head lying on my chest making difficult for my lungs to restore the normal breathing. My still alive heart was pulsating very fast. I was almost drowning in flood of the fresh sweat on my chest. All the last twelve dreams flashed in the sequence in my mind.
Exactly thirteen months back I first met her when I was returning from my mother’s funeral. A mesmerizing beauty, wrapped in a black suit, got down from an old model but neatly maintained car. Her beauty magnetized my full consciousness to be focused on her. I wasn’t a lecher and moreover was just coming out of a funeral, more over, that of my mother, but my eyes disallowed to look somewhere else. She turned to me; and there I was, totally unaware of being caught red handed brazenly staring at a beautiful stranger at the gate of the burial ground. My sight and mind both were caught in the depth of her illusive green eyes. Within no time, I found my body was lifted in the air and sucked through her eyes to a new world. I kept flying, higher and higher. Sun was getting dim and turning in a star as I left the solar system behind. The sky was full of stars – few twinkling, few flaming and few exploding. Soon I saw a green planet. Everything was green there – green sun, green moon, green cloud, green water, green restaurant… and there she was waiting for me on a table, in a cosy restaurant. There were two candles – smaller one was burning the body of the bigger one. Two glasses filled with the champagne were lying beside a vase with a rose bud. I picked the bud and touched her glass gently with the tip of the rosy petal.
She laughed, “… but you just said I had most beautiful eyes”.
Alarm broke my dream. It was first time in my life that the alarm broke my sleep. I didn’t remember dreaming anytime in my past or sleeping so long to allow the buzzing of the alarm. Since my childhood, I had been treated for insomnia and schizophrenia (lack of sleep and inability to distinguish between reality and imagination). I saw the digital watch on the side table.
It read, “5:30 AM, Friday, 13th January 2012”.
Same day in evening, I found her sitting in a cosy restaurant.
I asked, “Would you mind if I join you?”
She smiled with sparkles in her green eyes and said, “You are welcome.”
First time I dreamed and it came true. She became my dream girl – literally. My chronic disease wasn’t so easy to be cured by medicines. However her love was taking over the abnormality, at least once in a month… just one night in a month. Before I realized that I had started waiting for the thirteenth day of every month, she had already entered in my life, as my wife, as my love, as my dream girl.
In my second dream, I saw having sex with her in my living room. That day she moved in my apartment to live with me. That evening, we celebrated Valentine’s Day a day earlier in my living room same as we did in my dream.
Two months later, we registered our marriage in the municipal office.
Registrar, after pronouncing her and me as wife and husband, praised her beauty, “You have the most beautiful eyes and very sexy figure…”
Bang.
I was unable to control my fist breaking his soft nasal bone. Blood was falling from his nose to the white marble floor of the municipal office; and I could see my dream girl surprisingly but interestingly watching the blood. I had already seen this scene vividly six hours ago when I was awaken by the alarm at 5:30 AM, Friday, 13th April 2012.
Autumn was on peak. Maple leaves were covering the pathways. Few were yellow, few brown… I was watching the leaves swinging in the air before it touched my lawn. She came from the behind and rested her head on my shoulder as she gently kissed my neck, below my right ear.
“Do you like the free fall?” she asked, her kissing uncontrollable.
“Yes… I mean…” I couldn’t complete my statement.
Very soon her lips locked mine and we started peeling our clothes one by one like the maple leaves were leaving the tree. By now I had already realized presence of the psychic power in me, and was eagerly waiting for that night to see what would come next as fortune for us.
I was falling through clouds, not like maple leaves but straight getting accelerated by the gravity. I yelled for the help. Slowly her hand came forward, at the back of my head pulling me closer to her face. I saw her green eyes… a deep green lake and immersed in it. She locked my trembling lips by her’s and started feeding me powerful sedative of our love. It was an unparalleled experience. We were flying in the air. Very soon we were floating in the spongy clouds like the maple leaves…
Even this dream came true within ten hours on Friday, 13th July 2012. That day she took me for the parachute jumping.
Last month when the alarm broke my dream at 5:30 AM, Sunday, 13th January 2013, I had smile at my face. It wouldn’t going to be happened, at any cost. All odds were against it.
“I am a normal man with no psychic power…. anyway such power doesn’t exist.” I was already relaxed when she offered me a cup of coffee. “Should I tell her what have been happening with me? Yes I should… she is my wife, my love”, I decided firmly.
I was about to tell her my unusual experiences when the door bell rang. She opened the door to welcome a pale face old man in the snow covered old black overcoat and hat.
He offered a packet to her, “I must go back before it turns too bad. It took me a while to find you Signori… sorry Signora” His Italian accent broke as he looked at her wedding ring. He continued, “You may not know her… but she left a fortune for you, Signora. I settled everything and finally here it is… her entire property in a note from her bank… it is total three hundred grand more than 1 million” and he left us.
I almost fainted when she took out the banker’s cheque which read $1,313,000. I had seen this number in my dream few hours ago.
Next one month we had our second honeymoon in the beautiful Europe.
We returned yesterday. We both were very tired. I was eager to go in the bed as soon as possible, anticipating new gift from my dream but it turned to be nightmare. I realized her presence very near to me. Her head was on my chest.
“Does she own paranormal power? Is she aware of my dreams? Why did I get psychic power only after meeting her? Is she an enchantress or a witch? Why do I see dream only on thirteenth day of the month?”
Another wave of sweat was sprayed by the millions of pores of my skin. Something thicker was flowing on my chest. She opened her eyes and looked at me. Feeling of sharp cut at my chest was getting intense. Her hair pin was cutting through my skin just on top of my heart. A very thin stream of the blood through her right cheek was stopped at the joint of her upper and lower lips. She further raised her face. Few blood drops spilled from her lips’ joint at the right side.
There was a smile on her face that faded very soon when she saw the blood. In a jiffy she ran to the kitchen and brought the first-aid box to dress the wound. When she finished she came closer and planted a kiss on my forehead. I could see my blood stain on her chin. She was looking the most beautiful woman on this earth… my wife, my love, my dream girl. Seeing the realization of my thirteenth dream, I took a sigh of the relief but started feeling guilty of doubting her. There was nothing abnormal in her; it was me who wasn’t normal, and who had developed something strange. I couldn’t control myself and cried while hugging her tightly.
“Honey, my love… my dream girl… I can’t wait for tomorrow. We shall celebrate our second Valentine’s Day today itself. Last Valentine’s Day, you showered your love at me… today I am going to serve my heart to you.”
Her smile widened.
We went to the supermarket to purchase required stuffs for our private celebration. She was busy in buying grocery and other kitchen items while I was looking for a cake recipe book and the needed ingredients. I wanted to surprise her by my love.
“I am the luckiest man on the earth. Since she entered in my life, my life has turned in a dream, a real dream. Everything is so magical, full of enjoyment… that I have nothing more to ask from my life. My dream girl and I… I can do anything for her…”
I was baking a heart shape cake.
I read the next line from the recipe book, “…decorate it with cherries.”
“Oh No!!! I forgot the cherries”
But there was a pack of red cherries on the oven. I grabbed the packet without much thinking, and took out the cherries to decorate the cake. I kept the cake on the dining table. Tens of scented candles were lighting our living room.
“Honey I am ready please join me to cut cake… could you also bring a knife please” I called my dream girl.
And there she was… smiling in a red becoming gown… standing at the opening between the kitchen and the living room. A knife with a long blade was there in her hand. My eyes got fixed on the shining sharp steel blade on which a five corners star sign was marked just before the wooden handle of the knife.
I fainted.
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