If I should die before I wake

10:00 PM my biological clock beeps signalling me that it’s time for bed, then I’m showered, dressed and in bed, eyelids contracting, being pulled by invisible threads that is called sleep then darkness.

An empty void with endless space before the voice comes as it does every night. Calling. Pleading for me to answer, repeating the same thing over and over again like a broken tape recorder “Clarissa. Help”

Then I’m back in my prepubescent body, traveling back through time as if I hitched a ride on the modified DeLorean car.

Hovering just outside my brother’s room in nothing but my Minnie mouse nightshirt, the house is covering in a thick layer of smoke and flames are singing up to the heavens through the ceiling in a mix of oranges, reds and yellows, my mother is screaming to me through a ringer of fire while it devours their newly painted bedroom door. Poor daddy’s going to have to paint that again but not now as he’s asleep on the floor.

“Get your brother and run. Go Clarissa!!” she yells

I turn back opposite a burning bed cloaked by smoke is Olly curled into a tight ball under a desk, his face covered by tears and soot. Heaving for air, choking “Clarissa” his crying reaching for me.

I reach for him but the fire licks at my arms and I’m screaming, running down the stairs and out the door and into the waking world only to relive it again tomorrow night.