Nightmare Cloud

David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

It’s overcast for a thousand miles. The sky shifts and rumbles, then the rain starts and won’t ever stop. But precipitation in a dream doesn’t behave in the same way. It falls upwards, downwards, sideways. All simultaneous. It bends and circulates like a tornado. Is the rain alive in this place, I wonder. Lightning follows behind that until there’s a bright river of electricity flowing back and forth. It’s almost as if the atmosphere is on fire. The ground thunders just as loudly as the storm: one quakes and the other answers. Those sharp bolts of energy are the only source of light left in the maelstrom as an inconceivable kind of gravity begins pulling at the dark gray clouds, steering the wind. It’s so cold. The storm never passes though. The sleepless dream doesn’t end. The nightmare is the new reality.