Jo M Thomas
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Passage 18 - Drain The Swamp

Passage 18 - Drain The Swamp

May 16, 2022

My surroundings change in less than a blink of an eye. I don't even realise that things have changes until my foot squelches in mud. How is that possible, even in a dream? Of course, it'll be that damned panda's fault but... how does the scenery go from towering columns to flat, empty swamp just like that?

This is too much.

I can't cope.

I just want to go home.

I want to wake up in my nice clean hotel bed and stumble to the en-suite where I can stare at blood shot eyes, toilet, possibly puke and definitely clean my teeth before meeting up with the girls and comparing notes on just how pissed we all got.

I'm not supposed to be here.

Wherever here is, because it's certainly not like any dream I've ever had before. Not that I remember, anyway.

I stop, if only because I'm having difficulty pulling my foot, with shoe attached, out of the sucking mud to take the next step forward.

"There's no place like home," I mutter.

Why am I on my own? What happened to that feckless monstrosity of a guide? How could it - or anyone - leave me alone like this? Here, of all places!

I finally manage to pull my foot, sans shoe, out of the mud and stumble a couple of steps forward. I have to stop again because the same foot is now stuck again, the mud coming a little higher up my calf.

I look around, hoping to see something to pull myself along with. There's nothing, just some scrubby looking bare trees that are tiny and probably rotting where they stand. And some white bones sticking out of the mud just there. They look long.

I'm sinking further. It's slow but inevitable.

Is that a skull? What kind of animal has a long skull like that? Or is it some kind of dream monster?

I can't do this.

My face is wet. Just what I need. Rain.

I raise my hand to wipe the wetness from my face so it stops blurring my eyes and realise that the wetness is only on my face. Am I... Am I crying? Is this sadness?

I try to take another step forward and fall, face first, into the mud.

"You fucking bastard cunt," I say as soon as I raise my face from the muddy water that I'm probably about to drown in. "You fucking fuck-witted useless showers of shit. How dare you leave me on my own in a place like this!"

My clothes are ruined. I'm wet and muddy and extremely uncomfortable. I'm going to make sure every single one of those idiots responsible for this pays for it.

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