Enter Sandman (2/2)

What the hell, gentlemen?

A dark room. Pitch black. The darkness was barely diluted by a small window about one and a half meters up—assuming I was sitting on the floor. Assuming I was sitting at all. Stand up? In this kind of darkness?

I tried to push myself up with my hands, but they resisted. Both of them. Something was holding them. Was I tied up?

I lurched to my feet, swaying, almost falling back down. Yep, my hands were bound in some ridiculous way—like I was hugging myself.

I was scared. The rising panic wasn’t even softened by my inner voice’s jab about how I’d now "get to enjoy my own embrace forever." Yeah, real comforting.

The fear hit a breaking point, and I bolted. I ran and jumped around the dark cell like a madman, not caring that I could easily slam into something in the dark. Free me! Untie my hands!

Lightning flashed outside the window, and in the thunder’s roar, I caught a glimpse of the straitjacket restraining me. I howled. Why?

It felt like all my strength was spent in three jumps. I swayed, nauseous, wanting to collapse, while fear painted every corner into dangerous chasms leading deep below. Fall into one, and you’d plummet so long you’d lose track of time. All that would surround you—empty faces, rattling elevators, and endless mirrors.

Where were the walls? Where were the corners? I couldn’t find a single point of support except the floor. I needed a wall. And I needed tape. To fix something.

Honestly, if someone asks for tape, just give it to them.

I didn’t know what lurked even a meter away, and that terrified me. What if there was nothing there? Not empty air or a hole in the floor—but absolute nothingness, the kind you can’t even imagine in your right mind.

Is it because of you that I’m here, Nothing?

Alright. I see the window where rain lashes against the glass. I'll just charge forward at full speed. I can't even estimate the distance, but if I smash my nose, it's no big deal. The real problem would be breaking the glass—but I'm sure it'll hold.

BAM! Ow! Now there are blood droplets on the glass, and my nose is bleeding. BAM! A hand! Get down!

A palm smacks against the glass again with a wet slap. I don’t want to look at it. The hand keeps knocking, as if summoning something.

Please don’t let it start singing...

I’m on the floor, shaking with fear. The hand keeps knocking. Fine, I’ll peek with one eye. Maybe if I give it some attention, it’ll go away.

Careful. Don’t scare yourself.

It has four fingers.

I scream, but thunder drowns out my panic completely. The window slides open. These hands fill the entire room—four windows on the sides, one above. Do you see the palm? The four fingers? The neatly trimmed nails, the fine hairs on the knuckles.

Four fingers is wrong.

And I can’t accept it. Fear crosses every limit. I can’t even scream anymore—just gurgling rasps from my throat. My legs buckle; I’m on my knees. I don’t want to see the hands!

Thud. Thud. Thud.

A ringing in my head. This is pointless. The floor is soft. Too scared to close my eyes. If I do, the hands will shatter the glass and tear me apart. Into four pieces.

I writhe on the floor, choking on hysterical sobs. Surrounded by wrong hands—and I don’t even have any myself!

Something clicks behind me, and the straitjacket slips off.

Having my own hands again—that’s all I want now, after the hands outside disappear.

Lightning flashes once more. Now I see:

I have four fingers too.

Five centimeters from the edge of madness. Flash.

I see the Sandman’s socks.

Panic dissolves in the kitchen light and the scent of tea clinging to the air. My darting gaze lands on the Sandman’s alarmed face. Something clearly went wrong. Fear recedes completely as I sink into a hazy stupor. Two strong hands grab my shoulders, shaking me back to awareness. My head lolls limply.

A giant black caterpillar looms over me, its hooked tentacles lifting me with eerie ease before depositing me at the table—opposite the Sandman, who keeps his hands conspicuously hidden beneath it.

My vision finally clears. The "caterpillar" is my inner voice, stretched tall and draped in black. With poor eyesight and an overactive imagination, he could pass for one.

"Green suits caterpillars better," the Sandman remarks casually, though he rubs his neck pensively.

Irritation prickles at me. Of course—now that I’ve calmed down, caught my breath, the anger starts simmering. Anger at the Sandman for swapping our soulful kitchen talks for this absurd excursion, each flash more unsettling than the last. And his new mantra grates: "Nothing unusual just happened."

Another cup of tea sits before me. This one’s stronger—I gulp half in one go, the sugar and cloying aroma turning my stomach. Now I’m composed enough to dissect the black room piece by piece.

"So that—" I jerk my chin—"that’s how I end up? A psych ward? With defective hands? People look better with two full sets of five."

"Fully agree," the Sandman says. "Especially since you’ve experienced it firsthand. But that’s not how you end. It’s how I began."

"And yet, here you are—in a rather advantageous position. A dignified representative of an unknown world in our dreams. You escaped a dire situation despite being bound. Terrified half to death, alone with your sanity teetering on the edge."

"Demosh."

"That’s your universal plug for every existential question, I swear!"

"Pretty much. But we need to keep moving. There’s just one snag—flashing further from here could lead to more glitches of varying severity. To improve accuracy and safety, we have to go deeper."

Flash!

I’m on my old bed. Shrunk to the size of a bedbug, so the terrycloth sheet beneath me looks like a raging orange forest. I glance around. The distance is vast—climbing down is unthinkable, and the fabric trees loom menacingly.

Then, wind roars behind me. The thread-like trees bend flat as the gust seizes me, hurling me toward the headboard at hurricane speed. We’re going to crash!

No—the pillows absorb the worst of it, releasing clouds of dust, while the remaining breeze carries me to the gap between mattress and headboard and drops me. From this perspective, the gap resembles a tectonic rift.

The void rushes closer, devouring. The forest vanishes. Light abandons me. But it’s not dark—in the dimness, I see layers of mattress, rags, dust, wood grain. A pair of coins glint, likely untouched for a decade. Scraps and fragments. The smell of dust. Stagnation and permanence.

Every year, this colossal bed—occupying half the room—got fresh sheets and blankets, new pillowcases. But inside, in the mattress depths and frame joints? Only decay and a stability that doesn’t sustain—it suffocates. This wooden behemoth will press into the linoleum as long as it must. The bed is gone now, but the dents from its legs remain…

"And what does your bed hide?"

The impact of landing on the wooden slats beneath the bed merged with the jolt of hitting the stone floor, sending pain shooting through both knees. I stood up.

The small room had stone walls, floor, and ceiling. A dim bulb flickered overhead; otherwise, the space was empty—like a bunker carved from rough-hewn rock. The Sandman and my inner voice stood nearby, calm and unfazed.

"Landing successful?" the Sandman inquired. I nodded.

"Let’s go," he beckoned.

The next room was a small cave with a pool below. A stone bridge arched three meters above it. Sunlight filtered from above, casting shimmering reflections on the uneven walls. The Sandman and my manifested voice observed with keen interest, while I was struck by déjà vu. The next room, I sensed, would be a storage space.

The wooden door creaked open. Beyond it wasn’t quite a storage room but a cluttered living space. The left wall was lined with cabinets and shelves; in the far corner stood a desk, and to the right of the entrance—a folded-out sofa. The shelves were crammed with books, the desk and drawers buried under notebooks and loose sheets of notes. Only the sofa seemed clear, though I knew even beneath it lay chaos.

The Sandman surveyed the scene with obvious surprise now. Occasionally, his gaze lingered on a stack of papers, prompting a smirk and a shake of his head.

Finally, he looked at me:

"Mind if I sit? Not on the made-up sofa, surely."

"There are two chairs," I replied.

The Sandman nodded and took a low-backed chair with green upholstery. Meanwhile, my inner voice wandered to the far wall, studying a row of masks hanging from nails.

I smacked my forehead:

"The masks! Right! I promised to show you."

I felt like a tour guide who not only knows the exhibit inside out but takes genuine pleasure in explaining it.

"Mask number one—the Mask of Happiness. Of course, it won’t make you happy—they only provide an external effect. Mask number two—Joy. Number three—Interest."
(Handy, by the way.)
"Number four—Serene Calm. Niche, but not useless. Number five—Benevolent Indifference. Just as practical as the last. Number six—Concealment of Feelings. Turns love into friendship, hatred into dislike, contempt into pity. Number seven—Confident Composure. The room’s on fire, but you pretend everything’s going according to plan. Number eight—'Alpha.'"
(Limitless coolness and toughness oozing from every pore. Never actually used it.)
"Number nine—'Omega.' Readiness to submit, strangle your pride, and appear defenseless. Dubious utility, again. Number ten—'Stone Face.' Impenetrability. Be careful with that one."

"You don’t have Sadness or Hatred."

"Don’t need ’em. A sad face is easy to fake on the spot. And hatred? We’d do better learning to live without it. In an ideal world."

"Ideal? That’s interesting."

"Oh, it is interesting. The most interesting part is that it boils down to three letters, standing for three words. UJM: Unity. Justice. Peace."

"Unity—because we, as humans, won’t achieve anything until we unite as a single society spanning the entire planet. Borders erased at every level. Justice—because real life is just life. People get what they earn, based on their actions. Not some forced equality, but removing barriers to self-improvement. If you can—realize it yourself, help others realize it, make others capable of realizing it—and be rewarded. Honesty without coercion. Fighting the word 'must.' Peace—because no greater evil exists than war. No conquest can ever be justified. Of course, when it comes to defense, you fight for survival by any means. But those who start wars? Just the vilest kind of murderers. That’s my vision. Utopian and naive, I won’t argue. I just want to believe in something better."

"An interesting stance. Smells like... I can't even pinpoint what. The future, perhaps. Well then, act. It's all still ahead."

"Act? What can I do alone? All I can do is imagine."

"You're not alone. You'll never be alone," came a voice from the chair.

"Meaning?"

The Sandman set aside a notebook page covered in some kind of table, stood up, and gestured broadly at the dusty room:

"If you free yourself from the clutter inside and out, if you burn all the masks—you'll never be alone again. But the choice is yours. Orders are a lost cause."

Flash!

A vast, bright auditorium. Despite the closed windows and the countless people, the room wasn’t hot or stuffy. Mostly elderly, bearded men sat in orderly rows, listening to a professor’s hoarse voice amplified by a microphone echoing through the hall.

I appeared in the aisle between the rows. No one paid me any attention—except for a woman in the middle of the third row to my left. She turned, jumped up, pointed at me, and burst into strange, clucking laughter before sitting back down as if nothing happened. The situation unsettled me, but the speaker continued without pause.

Not knowing what to do until the lecture ended (leaving outright felt rude), I decided to listen. Soon, my eyes widened in disbelief—the professor was spouting utter nonsense:

"Given the current state of stool dissection, garlic neckties are absolutely essential. Pork labels are less significant, merely tinting the computational results of seven apples. Without five motors, we must conclude that bottom coatings, propelled by pies made of wooden cubes, are hazardous. At the end of passwords, delivery plummets, dear colleagues!"

This marked the end of the professor's speech, met with thunderous applause. The scraping of chair legs against the floor filled the air as people calmly filed out through the narrow auditorium exit—all except two eccentrics.

A heavyset man in his forties, seated in the second row, pushed into the aisle and immediately began mimicking a motorcycle engine, elbows flapping. Hearing this, a short, stocky man from the fifth row charged toward the sound like a wound-up toy. Overturning tables in his path, he leaped onto the heavyset man’s back with mechanical "tick-tock" noises. In the same motion, both vaulted onto the windowsill, shattered the glass, and raced down the road at the speed of a high-performance motorcycle.

The exiting professors and academics observed this with perfect equanimity. Not even the prospect of replacing the window seemed to trouble a single soul.

Finally, I stepped outside—unexpectedly, the auditorium exit led straight to the street. A small parking area lined the curb. One attendee popped open his briefcase mid-sidewalk, pulled out a cloak and hat, then mounted an oversized wallet like a horse. Spurring it forward, he took flight with a crunch of crumpling banknotes and vanished into the sky.

I continued down the sidewalk. A hundred meters from the building, the crowd thinned, leaving ample space. On a low pedestal stood a round-faced little man in a hat, reciting verse eerily reminiscent of the professor’s speech:

"Gorgonzola, grated cheese.
Halt, mustachioed Moidodyr!
Uncle Tomato now shall seize
Three gluttons slumped by the fire."

"Oil will vanish, gas will too,
Stools retreat from me and you.
Legions, rise! The hour is late—
Green melons bow to fate."

"Flee! The Empire groans in shade,
Fanatics block the parade.
Grab the hooks, clutch the rails,
Iron fences, captains’ gales."

The rope creaks, the curtain rises.
Look, the Moon! It won’t abandon us!
I press a button. Notebook exhaust fumes, bangs, a face.
Give in, say three phrases… good boy.

Analysis after analysis—seven, five, eleven. Say the script’s around thirty pages. Cunning plans swarm en masse.

We unearthed a hundred and seventeen pages in the dig.

The reciter had just drawn breath to continue when he spotted me, choked, pointed, and screeched hysterically: "Catch him!"

Seizing the momentary confusion of the gathered listeners, I shoved two aside and bolted down the sidewalk. Elbowing through the crowd to shouts of "Step on it!" and "Get him!", I desperately scanned the building facades for an alley.

One appeared—I ducked into it, hoping to vanish. A five-second breather, then I ran again. No such luck! A towering two-meter clown with ginger mustaches blocked the narrow path. He pulled balls from his pockets and began juggling. One "accidentally" bonked my head, and everything went dark.

I came to in the storeroom of my own mind, slumped against the mask-covered wall, gasping for air.

"So, how was the adventure?" The Sandman winked.

"Please don’t tell me that’s your hometown," I rasped between breaths.

"An intriguing guess, but no. I just thought we could lighten the mood between heavy memories and musings about the world’s workings. You enjoyed it, didn’t you?"

A grin played across his face.

"I like the running part. The word salad? Less so. And I can’t stand clowns or clownery—though I suspect you adore them."

"Wrong again. I love two things: statistics and television. With the first, you can make people believe any nonsense through the second."

"A keen observation," interjected my inner voice, now seated on the second chair—taller, with black leather upholstery.

"No tea left," the Sandman spread his hands, "but you seem fine without it."

I nodded silently.

"Purely out of curiosity—do you prefer blondes or brunettes?"

"Oh," I smirked, "that might be the easiest question tonight. Brunettes. Absolutely. Dark hair is exquisite. So with your sandy locks, let’s just say you’re out of luck."

"Do I resemble a blonde?"

"In certain lights. Why ask?"

"Statistical interest. Keeping track, you might say."

"And the results?"

"1:0. You’re the first I’ve asked."

"So you’re insecure about your appearance? Trying to optimize your appeal?"

"No."

I could’ve sworn I spotted a flicker of redness on the Sandman’s face.

"Let’s hurry," he continued. "Dawn approaches. Journeys can’t last forever—then they’d just be wandering the world."

"Don’t forget to ask for a receipt!" my manifested voice shouted at the last second.

Flash!

Back in the kitchen. For a second, it’s empty—then I spot the Life Safety teacher at the table. Comrade teacher? In my apartment?

Of all people, he noticed me instantly. Smirked, eyes raking me head to toe.

"Good. You're here, all prepped. I came for you personally."

"Came for what?" My confusion felt too sharp for a dream.

"No more questions needed. You—and not just you—were made to destroy. Raised to oppose everything foreign, to dismantle it completely. You were to be shielded from all harmful, unnecessary, abnormal ideas. You’ll create nothing more in this life. Now, you’ll only destroy."

I clung to the thought that this was just a dream, absurdity. Or was it as real as the old man in the rocking chair?

"I thought that—"

"You won’t need to think anymore either. Just obey, soldier!"

The floor split open. Unoriginal by now.

Where was I falling through this darkness? To which front of another meaningless war? And most importantly—why? What are we even fighting for? We no longer defend our homes or loved ones. We defend nothing, because there’s nothing left. Just land that was once ours. This country has no honor left, though they desperately convince us otherwise. And they succeed. Sometimes, flickers of pointless pride flare in my chest—only to drown in grief and bewilderment at the state of things.

I don’t want to destroy. I don’t want to kill. I don’t want a weapon in my hands, defending others’ interests, solving others’ problems. I don’t want to be a soldier.

The darkness thickened, and the Sandman’s voice hissed in my ear:

"And you hate the current regime, don’t you? Dream of its downfall?" The conspiratorial whisper burrowed deep.

"What does that matter now? Let’s just skip the bloodshed. Tyranny can’t survive peace. Cage the predator. Starve it of meat."

Before I knew it, I was back in the storage room. Whether the Sandman had a genuine epiphany or was just changing the subject again—unclear. But after studying me through narrowed eyes for a few seconds, he clapped his hands:

"Yes! Now I realize who you remind me of. I once knew a guy very much like you—down to his looks and beliefs. His father owned a fairly large enterprise and often reminded his son that it would be his inheritance. The son... wasn’t exactly thrilled. Running such a behemoth was no small task. Then the unexpected happened, and the son had to take over. And that broke him."

"'Broke him?' You mean..."

"I won’t go into details. It just broke him. He dreamed of entirely different things, and then—bam. Some people just aren’t made for business."

"What can you do? Power either breaks people or changes them beyond recognition," I shrugged.

"Sometimes, a single dream can change a person. One plunge can shift your perspective and open doors. One flash can blind you—and when your sight returns, you won’t recognize much. Your views will shift along with the colors of the world’s palette. If the change comes from within, your consciousness has broken free."

Flash!

So dark. It smells of dampness and fresh grass. Sensation returns—I realize my face is pressed into the earth. The ground is warm. Sun-heated, it clings to me, reluctant to let go, sharing its warmth with anyone who presses close.

Yet, I rise. A light but warm breeze sweeps over the earth—uncharacteristic for night. Is it even night? Above me hangs a colossal planet, a New Moon, bathing the world in reflected green light. It’s so vast I can trace the outlines of continents on its surface. Green planet, green light, green grass and trees surround me. Even the star-studded black sky glimmers with green. Two shooting stars. Tonight, they’ve found their target—or perhaps they shatter in despair at the futility of their existence. Other stars gleam brightly, watching with sympathy. They’re fine. They give their warmth to planets, sustaining life. They feel needed.

Stars don’t live forever. But they believe that someday, the inhabitants of their illuminated worlds will come to them, lovingly bestow a name, and help them live a little longer. Or apologize for having nothing to give in return. Maybe they’ll just flee, staring coldly as the star dies. Or perhaps they’ll share its fate—by choice or necessity.

The green world arches overhead. A small river winds between stones so ancient they’ve grown coats of grass. Even the water seems green in this new light.

The night is bright. If the sky yawns with blackness tinged green, the grass is a steadfast dark emerald. The water—a pale, shimmering jade. And a tiny waterfall nearby is painted white. Alone amid the green. But it doesn’t mind. It’s content.

This isn’t Earth. This is definitely not Earth.

On either side of the river stretch wide grassy plains, flat as boards. A forest looms on the horizon, but it’s too dark to see clearly. The river ends at the waterfall. I approach the edge. A rocky cliff, overgrown with grass, shrubs, and low ferns. Below sprawls a vast lake—pale green at the center like young grapes, deepening to rich teal at the shores. The banks begin with sparse grass, then timid clusters of ferns, and further in—real jungles, where tropical palms mingle with oaks, pines, and vines. One patch of foliage catches the light perfectly, its details vivid without effort. In several spots, palms and willows bend over the water. Or maybe not palms or willows, if this isn’t Earth. But why must everything differ drastically? What if evolution has only one path, or a few key forks? Here too, I might find people. People who’ve learned to cherish and preserve this green world’s beauty.

Is the water warm? No. I won’t swim. Better to pluck a tuft of grass as a keepsake—may this world forgive me. The question is, how do I return? I don’t know how far home is. I don’t even remember how I got here.

The planet overhead dimmed. Then the stars winked out one by one. Darkness flared—boiling—before cooling, thickening, hardening into absolute black.

Then came warmth. Not the kind the earth had emitted. This was different in nature and origin. It melted the darkness, turning it fluid, rippling its surface until bubbles began to form. When the darkness seethed, large bubbles tore through it, bursting and carrying away swathes of that boiling void. With each pop, a piece of darkness vanished into nothingness.

The warmth enveloped me. It was stronger than all those fragile connections. It flowed from me, merging with the arriving warmth, then returned—a cocktail so familiar I soon stopped distinguishing its source. Just warmth. A union that rejected ownership. Try to chain love, buy happiness, or strangle hatred. Did it work? Not for long. You can’t seize and claim these things. You can only join and share.

Unite with someone. Take all the beauty within and around you, and divide it—with whomever you choose—until you merge. Absolute fusion. Imagine: two pure consciousnesses blended into one. Where do you end, and where begins the one who has become part of you?

I once thought solitude was beautiful. It is. Until a point. I no longer want to be alone. Not always. No, I don’t need perfection. Just happiness.

Then, soft and insistent, the scent arrived. Her scent, half-forgotten beneath tea and the night’s journey. It seeped in with every breath, mingling with the warmth.

My arms wrap around her, pulling her close. Her head rests on my shoulder. The scent—her hair, her skin—the warmth, it’s all there. Now I have everything. Because there’s no room left for emptiness.

And yet—why her? Of all the people I’ve known, why was it her who closed the circuit in my mind? I can’t claim I started seeing the world differently. But I believed it could be seen differently—in a way that wouldn’t feel foolish or meaningless. I thought I could stop fearing being misunderstood. That I could speak my mind without dread of being called unhinged. Maybe this is just a fragment of the ideal I constructed. Maybe it’s a fragment of an unconstructed truth.

I’m glad. Glad for what happened, no matter how much better or worse it could’ve been. I reject the happy "what if."

We sit by the waterfall, pressed close, wrapped in each other’s arms. The green planet still hangs above us. This new world remains.

Something shifts—now I’m on my back. Hot breath on my face, warmth pressing everywhere. The earth heats me from below. Grass tickles my bare skin. Even my flesh looks green in this light—a hue that seeps in faintly at first, then saturates, sparking emerald flashes behind my eyelids.

Someday, we’ll rise. There’s no need to rush here. We can’t lose time anymore. Can’t forget or lose each other. This isn’t an ending. Happiness isn’t stagnation; peace isn’t a finale.

Is this nirvana? Eternal rest? I don’t know. But this state exists—it’s reachable. That’s nearly the last of what I still believe.

I closed my eyes…

A whistle in my ears. I’m sprinting up stone stairs, footsteps echoing. The steps blur beneath me until I trip. Impact—a spasm—a yank! I’m dragged upward through countless layers of crackling, brittle glass.

My body thuds onto the bed as consciousness slams back into it. I open my eyes.

A dark room, unlit. Curtains drawn, lights off. Drenched in sweat, tangled in sheets. A dream. The bitterness hasn’t hit yet—just stunned by everything that happened tonight.

I wrestle free of the sheets. Nausea. Dizziness. I’m alone. No one’s here.

The phone rings. Its vibrating buzz against the wooden desk is grotesquely loud.

"Unknown caller."

Sleep is the strangest of the mind’s games.

So says my fantastical, yet almost understandable now, nocturnal visitor. Farewell, Sandman.

I’m still not ready for astonishment. I sat on the chair, mechanically running my hands through my hair, staring at the corner as if it could give me something—anything. That corner won’t give me anything. Not here.

It felt like a long time had passed. Dawn was breaking through the curtains. I returned to bed. Maybe I’ll fall asleep again and go back. Why stay awake now, with dreams like these?

The sheets were completely dry. A faint remnant of warmth and scent lingered. I wanted to wrap myself in the sheet and disappear, sink into a green abyss. Now, I truly felt sad. A deep, painful regret that I had even missed the dream. A tear rolled down my cheek. It’s fine. Right now, I have the right.

On the pillow lay two blades of grass and a long, dark hair.