I dream the same dream nearly every night. In it I am walking down a hallway, the kind of hallway hospitals have – long, mint green, and punctuated by occasional nurse’s stations. The stations are unattended and dimly lit, the halls shadowy. I can hear the beeps of monitors and read what I presume are patients’ names on the doors of the rooms I pass by. Some voices call out to me and beg me to come into their rooms. Others scream at me to stay away. In the dream I am always carrying the same thing in my hand – a long, thin pair of sharp scissors.
I have had this dream for as long as I can remember. Once, I started to tell my mother about it and she looked at me, horrified, and told me to hush. She told me never to speak of the dream again. I never even got to the part about the scissors …