a troubled night

i get up over and over

i have a piss or have a drink and walk around a bit

but i always return to the same dream

a huge city where its always night

somewhere in town is a huge apartment block

inhabited by some loathsome  evil

right at the top of the building lives this terrible thing

i myself living in another tall apartment block

at the top of which lives my employer or benefactor or whatever he is

i am scared/in awe of this person who has some power over me

i cant work out if he owes me a favour

or if i owe him one but we are seemingly bound together

one of my daughters is missing presumably in the bad tower

i keep petitioning my boss to help me rescue her

i make the long trek up  the lonely stairs to where he lives

full of doubt full of trepidation

sometimes hes there

sometimes no one answers my knocking on his door

he is rich urbane and knowledgeable

i can never clearly see his face

sometimes hes angry to be interrupted

sometimes he promises me help

he gives me a pistol

he has friends in the police

we should alert the police

other times he says no police we’ll take care of it ourselves

i wake up i stumble thru the house trying to shake it off

when i lie down the dream starts up again

the city of night

the 2 apartment blocks

sometimes ive arranged a big group of vigilantes

we climb up the stairs of the evil tower to find my daughter

and the others missing in there

sometimes it seems like a huge terrible worm is at the top

sometimes its empty

sometimes hideous ordeals that amount to nothing in the end

then i’m back in the tower where i live

“go up and see him!” urge the various changing people i live there with

or sometimes on my own

i climb up and up the stairs

to see him

he again gives me the pistol or suggests the police

at the police station i stand in a line

but the station always closes before i get to the top of the line

at the evil tower ive broken in with my pistol

up the stairs i go

empty or full of foul things

i battle and struggle alone or with comrades

we never find our missing ones

the evil at the top is always elusive

eventually at the end of my last dream

(i must have woken up n fallen back into it 15 times)

eventually i realise

why yes of course

its the same tower

why yes of course

the man i’m working for

is the evil thing

a perfectly detailed world with solidity and dimension

all within my heaving mind

i sit here now unable to forget the torment of it

is it the great gothic novel?

is it a warning?

or is it just an incredibly complex recurring dream?

i dunno

but i cant shake it off

hell!