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I keep having the strangest dream, scurrying around in a pale pink gown, a surprisingly comfortable gown, which yes, is very odd as far as gowns go. There’s this huge formal wedding about to take place in a cathedral completely covered in wall to wall plush gray carpet. It’s hard to walk on the stuff, it’s so squishy.

I’m upstairs in this balcony area, a kind of foyer off a hallway full of rooms behind white doors. I can look over the balcony down at the church and see people attaching flowers to the scarred places on pews. I’m supposed to be attending to the bride somehow although I’m rolling my eyes about it. This isn’t a joyous and innocent wedding at all, it’s more an anxiety ridden event, with everyone running about trying to cover things up like you do right before company arrives. Somebody lays a pale pink piece of cloth over a table in the hall that has coffee rings and candy stuck to it. This disturbs me, you can’t just drape a cloth over something dirty and call it clean, but you can of course, when you’re pressed for time.

I’m reluctant to go find the bride, and even though I have no idea who she is or what she looks like, I’m familiar with her somehow and would prefer to just avoid her entirely. I walk down the hall and see a lamp knocked over and broken and I know I’ve found her. She’s on the floor in this alcove, completely snockered, up to the gills full of alcohol, you can smell her long before you see her. Of course she’s not alone, she’s making out with one of the groomsmen and I’m somewhat relieved to realize it’s not the best man, as if that makes the situation any better. Her make up is smeared, her dress is ripped, she is a total mess, but having a great time apparently, still in the celebratory phase of her alcohol induced feast. I imagine that she will soon be maudlin and melancholy and crying over her spilt drink, but at the moment she is loud and boisterous and laughing hysterically.

I have absolutely no anxiety or concern at all about finding the bride in this condition, I’m simply resigned to it. “When is the groom arriving?” I ask, matter of fact.

“Anytime now,” this girl all dressed in lime green silk answers. Silk is so slippery and she is just encased in it. Every now and than she gives a little puff and blows the cloth out of her face, where it’s floated up and tried to envelop her completely. Half the time I can’t even see her face, but I know it’s covered in freckles and she has very dark hair. “He already knows all about her,” she whispers, “what she’s like, I mean.”

“Who is she?” I ask. My little silk encased friend turns to me with a surprised look and says, “Why, the Bride of Christ of course!”

I can actually feel something in my head break, hear the snap, as her words start resonating. I feel this hysteria starting to well up, but I’m so marinated in agitation now that I can’t even manage a proper scream. My body just sinks to the floor but I think I’m still hovering somewhere outside of it. I am depleted, in a state of complete despair as the implication of her words just wash over me.

From a sea of lime green silk, freckle face looks down at me with a wry smile and says, “Relax, it’s going to be okay. He already knows.”

sleeping beauty