The Black Glove (Chapter 4)

Chapter 41

I threw my head up. I was in a state of confused time a lot of the time recently. My mom had taken me back home already and I was lying on my bed. It was 2:30 am when I looked at the clock on my wardrobe. I groaned, rolled my eyes, and put my head back to face the ceiling. Disasters could really turn your world upside down, and I found that out the hard way. I yawned and wiped my eyes, as anyone would do at 2:30 a.m. I stayed looking at the ceiling for a good hour, contemplating life and death and what life is really worth in the end. What was its purpose? What was my purpose? I saw a movie once, and one of the lines had something to do with you can either live a life filled with purpose, or you can live a life filled with happiness. To live a happy life you must live completely in the moment, and love everyone and everything unconditionally. To live a life filled with purpose you must dwell incessantly on the past and obsess about the future. I completely agree with that, but was I destined to lead a happy life or a purposeful life? I figured that there had to be a happy medium, but at that moment, I was dwelling in the past.2

I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that my two best friends had actually died. Gone to another realm of existence if you will. It was so hard to believe that I would actually never see them again. What were they doing now? Were they doing anything? Were they still together? Would I actually see them one day? My mind was riddled with these questions that were unanswerable. I racked myself trying to find a logical way to stop it. Watch a movie? Too late. Eat something? Again, too late. Read something? I hate reading. Beat myself up? Well, maybe. Then, when I came across suicide, I finally stopped. Was I mad? Suicide? That was out of the question. I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen for a drink of water. Water would solve it. A nice, cold, tall glass of water.3

I reached into the glass door of the cabinet and grabbed a cup. I used my left hand because my right one was immobile. I filled the cup with ice and tap water. Evidently, tap is better for you than bottled. Thank you Mom. I sat up at the kitchen counter and began to drink. My body was half awake, but my mind was on full speed. I looked at every item in the room with a different sense of appreciation. “I’ve changed,” I thought, “Who knows if it’s for the better?”4

My mind wandered for a bit. How was Michelle dealing with this? I let myself wrap my thoughts around her for a moment or two, when suddenly, I began to feel a tingle in my right hand.5

“It’s just asleep.” I thought out loud, “Sleeping.”6

After I had finished my water, I had expected it to stop, but it continued to tingle, and it continued to get more severe. After a couple more minutes it felt like needles being relentlessly stuck through my skin. I looked down at my hand. The plastic! What was happening? It was sliding like a million garden snakes around my hand. It wrapped around, its jet-black sleekness enveloping my hand. I held it in the air, looking and waiting.7

“STOP IT!” My mind was screaming. I didn’t want to wake my family. “STOP IT PLEASE.” I was crying it hurt so badly. What was this monster taking me over? The plastic kept morphing and enclosing my hand, wrapping it like a strongly applied ace bandage. The sudo-liquid dripped down my wrist. After 5 minutes of torture, it finally stopped. “What is this?” I thought scared out of my mind, “What is going on?” Tears trickled down my reddened cheeks. I looked at my hand in complete disbelief, turning it on all angles to get a better look.8

“It’s a lucid dream! That’s it! It’s all just a very, very bad dream. My biology teacher always told me that if you managed to be able to look at your hand in a dream, if you can get that much control over your dream, then you could take complete control of it! That’s it! Lucid dream. Dreaming.” My thoughts made so much sense. I kept on repeating it to confide myself in it. Lucid dream, lucid dream, lucid dream. I would go back to my room, and get back to sleep, and when I woke in the morning, it would all be gone. That was it. It would be gone. But it felt so real. It looked so real. As badly as it hurt, though, the best part about it was that I could move my hand again. It was moving! But if this was a lucid dream, and I had control of it, then why was my left hand still deformed, and why did I still have the scars? I would never wish for that. Ever. So what was going on?9

I shut off the lights in the kitchen and returned to my bedroom. Maybe if I slept and woke up something would be different. So I did the logical thing. I went to bed.