Skeletons in my Closet

Date: 12/13/2025

The all-too-familiar industrial screeching begins again. Loud. Unbearable. A drill boring straight through my ears, vibrating my teeth, rattling my skull like loose change in a tin. And then — pop — my body leaves its… body. It peels away cleanly, like a label ripping from glass. Everything looks wrong. Jumbled. As though somebody has shaken reality and forgotten where the pieces belong. The light is on. Not the forgiving glow of mood lighting, but the garish main light — the one that exposes dust, flaws and bad decisions. One of which is the large wardrobe that is now planted in the middle of my bedroom. I absolutely did not put that there. Why would I? Unless I’ve finally had the nervous breakdown everyone’s been politely waiting for. I wobble towards it on jelly legs, still not used to these astral limbs. I feel like Wallace in his mechanical trousers — over-engineered, under-rehearsed. I run my fingers over the wardrobe door. Solid. Textured. Real in a way dreams shouldn’t be. “Definitely dreaming,” I say, pleased with myself. Smug, even. Nothing like catching reality with its trousers down. “Take me to see my friend Nick,” I demand, addressing whoever’s on the cosmic night shift. Some celestial intern, probably underpaid. “Now, please.” I rocket upwards into darkness. Visibility goes a bit screwy, like someone’s smeared Vaseline over the stars. I have words. “Sort it out, will you? I can’t see properly!” And just like that — click — the universe sharpens. Customer service impeccable. I’m travelling down a staircase. Huge. Monumental. A staircase built for giants, or gods with nowhere urgent to be. I fly past the steps because why walk when you can glide? Other entities pass by, glowing and self-contained, each on their own nocturnal errand. No one stops. No one lingers. Then I’m at a beach. Twilight. That in-between hour where nothing quite belongs to itself. Glitter-coated waves roll in and out under moonlight, slicing the shore like sequinned knives. I decide to ride them. Obviously. I sprout a tail — no fuss, no paperwork — and skim across the water like a mermaid on a mission. My fin doubles up as a surfboard. It’s exhilarating. Incredible. I’m not late. I’m not tired. I’m not counting hours. I’m just riding the moment. I drift into a seaside market in a town I don’t recognise. Quirky. Charmingly off-kilter. One stall catches my eye — selling expensive things. Motorcycles. Trinkets. And hanging there, swaying gently, Day of the Dead skeletons. Beautiful. Delicate. Ridiculous. It would be so easy to steal one. Just lift it from the hook. No alarms. No consequences. My hands hover inches from its fragile bones. I imagine the clatter if I drop it. The mess. I almost do. Almost. But even in this strange, rule-flexible world, I still have a conscience. Somewhere deep inside, it taps me on the shoulder. Yay me. Some things aren’t meant to be taken. Some things ask you to notice them, not own them. And then — Nick. Curse my over-excited brain. I’ve forgotten my mission entirely. Travelling to see my friend Nick. A fellow lucid-dream fanatic. Well, not quite as gung-ho as me — but definitely into it. We’d always said we’d meet in the realm someday. Joked that it would be hilarious if we ran into each in the astral before we ever met in real life. We used to talk about it like it was inevitable. As if one night we’d just bump into each other mid-dream, both slightly embarrassed, like, Oh. You here too? But now I’ve drifted. The thought of him slips through my fingers, too distracted by waves that glitter, stalls that glow and shiny objects — classic me. The dream keeps offering me side quests, and I can’t say no. My mission hasn’t failed exactly. It's just… been politely ignored. Which feels… familiar. As does the panic that's just crept in. I must write this dream down. I’ll forget by morning — I always do. This becomes the mission. I ask the stallholder for paper. He hands me something plastic. Too smooth. Too artificial. The pen is dying, wheezing its last streaks of ink. “Bloody typical,” I think. I scribble anyway. The pen squeaks miserably. When I look back — Jesus. Unreadable. Worse than unreadable. Complete gobbledygook. Symbols. Nonsense. As if my thoughts have tripped and fallen down the stairs. “For fuck sake,” I mutter. The stallholder watches me with weary amusement. He’s seen this before. Bloody mortals. I can almost hear it. Or maybe I’ve read his thoughts. Hard to tell anymore. The edges of the world start to thin. Colours fade. Sound stretches. And I wake with a jolt. “My dreams,” I think. Urgent. I grab my phone. iPhone notes. Fingers flying — Except they aren’t. My brain won’t form words. Sentences collapse before they are born, turning into the same nonsense again. The same garbled rubbish. And then my son walks in. “Mum,” he says, “where’s my wardrobe?” And it hits me like icy water to the face. I never woke up. The screeching returns — but now it’s scanners, cages, rollers slamming shut. The staircase flattens into a loading bay. The waves become conveyor belts. The market dissolves into rows of parcels wrapped in plastic urgency. Work. Of course. The universe isn’t letting me off that easily. I spend most of my life here — I may as well dream work too. Charlotte and I wade through the pre-Christmas bulge. Panic buys. Things destined for landfill. We smile because that’s part of the uniform. “Have a nice day,” I tell another grumpy customer, lying efficiently. By the end of the day, that sweet almost-freedom feeling settles in. We’re done. We are not done. Back at the depot, Paul pounces like a tiger on prey. “You’re going out on another delivery.” My face drops. My last nerve snaps quietly. “What? I was meant to finish hours ago.” “We’re all pulling extra weight this Christmas,” he says. “You’re obliged.” Obliged. Obliged to scream, maybe. He offers me a tolerable route. Scenic. Manageable, even. Then Zuzanna — well-meaning, lovely Zuzanna. “I’ll do The Avenue.” I love her. Truly. But right now I want to rugby tackle her into a pile of flattened boxes. “For fuck sake!” I shout. Silence. The depot freezes. All eyes on me. Zuzanna looks like I’ve sucked the wind out of her lungs. “I’m sorry,” I say. I mean it. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper.” “I think you need a chill pill,” she snaps. Then she softens. Hugs me. “It’s okay. I still love you.” But the words sound thin. Bitter. Like medicine that hasn’t dissolved properly. As I shuffle towards a shit round with my name on it, I see it. In the middle of the depot. A wardrobe. Impossible. Familiar. Exactly where it shouldn’t be. The door hangs slightly open, the same way it did in my bedroom, like it’s been waiting for me to notice. For a split second, I half expect to see Nick inside. Astral Nick. Leaning casually, hands in pockets, smirking. Took you long enough, he’d say. But of course, it isn’t him. I step closer. I open the door fully. The Day of the Dead skeleton hangs inside, just as I remember. Neatly arranged. Untouched. Not grinning. Not judging. Just waiting. And something settles. These aren’t my secrets. These aren’t my failures. These are the moments I keep hanging up for later. The moments I promise myself I'll get to. The life I keep postponing while I rush towards the next thing. I don’t take the skeleton. I don’t step inside the wardrobe. Somewhere, a meeting that was meant to happen quietly lets itself go. I close the door gently. The skeleton stays in my closet — and for once, I just am.