It all started out pretty normal. A friend of mine, Bie, gave me a birthday gift wrapped in news paper, a Japanese calligraphy set. I distinctly remember that I could guess what was my gift because the news paper wrapping it had an article with two small pictures of the Japanese calligraphy set. I was ecstatic, I kept thanking her.
* * * * *
Then the sky turned stormy grey, like it was about to rain and suddenly I was in my old high school. There was me and a handful of students in the class and my Malay Studies lecturer from college was sitting at the teacher's desk. She asked me to do some tasks for her. I was reluctant at first but I agreed.
* * * * *
A complete blank. Just plain black.
The next scene I remember is completely unrelated to the first two but what they do have in common is that the sky outside was still very very dark. It was not night though. It merely looked like there was a storm arriving. It gave the impression that I was still dreaming the same day but with gaps between them that I cannot seem to remember.
* * * * *
I was sitting at a wooden table with my family, at a restaurant. Even though it was dark outside, no lights were turned on. We just sat there waiting for our food to arrive. For some reason, it also felt like I was expecting somebody else to arrive. The sense of 'waiting' and 'mild anxiety' coloured my impression of this whole scene.
Of all my family members at the table, I only remember my Dad. I did not actually talk to my mom or little brother but I knew they were there. Dad looked displeased that he was kept waiting. I kept twiddling with my assorted wrist bands. A particularly pretty looking bracelet jumps to mind. It did not have beads on it, just red jade-like material cut into leave shapes. Cabbage leaves.
The food never came. Everybody decided to leave. The next thing I know is that I was walking towards a park with my parents. We were heading for my Dad's working place, a university. It was still very dark but now the winds had started to pick up. I remember this because the dried leaves in the park were caught in the wind, they looked almost alive. When we neared the steel gates of the park, Dad decided that he had to go to his office, so we split up. There was only me and my mother.
As soon as mom opened the steel gates, a man slipped behind us. I could see him yet I could not actually see him. He was just all black, like a shadow made solid. He said he only wanted to follow us to the prayer room and only then do I realize that we were on our way there. From his gentle voice, I decided that he was harmless. I did not feel any fear or malice for him, but I did feel a little nervous because I could not see his face.
The park was deserted. We kept walking and the man followed. Eventually, we went into an underground tunnel and the angry sound of stormy winds stopped. The tunnel led to a large public washroom. We were going to perform our ablutions.There were quite a lot of people there. For some reason there were three Caucasian guys in the washroom too, they were sitting on the toilets and looked like they were being tortured. I also had the odd feeling that not all of us in the washroom were human at all. Some seemed to have animosity bared in the plains of their faces, their eyes a little too dark, their body language giving off a terrifying predatory aura. I struggled to perform my ablutions because men and women were not separated. Also, I was scared witless.
It was there, under the bright fluorescent lights that the true horror of the Shadow man's appearance were revealed. He had no skin. None at all. He was as red as raw meat because that was all he was. He looked exactly like the pictures of the 'Muscular System' and he was dripping blood a little. He also did not have any eyes and a mouth. Where they should be, there were only smooth red muscle. Skinless, he was naked in the truest sense of the word.
I stared at him until he turned his head and seemed to spot me. He looked away and appeared to be humiliated so I stopped staring and hurried into the prayer room.
As I was about to pray, there was a knocking coming from the inside of a door (which, incidentally is identical to my maid's room at my house), so I went over and opened the door and peered inside (The room was identical to my maid's room at my house). Standing there was the Shadow man, except he now looked like a whole, normal and healthy person. In fact, he was good looking in a very ordinary kind of way. He was smiling and asked me if he could borrow one of the shirts strewn around the room. I said yes and left.
Even though I left, I could still see the inside of the room. An invisible third party spectator, like in films. Shadow man was having difficulty putting the shirt on when a brisk knocking and an angry shout to 'Hurry up!' pierced the silent and happy scene. It took quite a while for him to finally put the shirt on and when he finally did, he yanked the door open with alarming force.
And that is the end. The last thing I remember about the dream before I woke up is, 'Shadow man is angry.'
