DIVINATIONS 
MAGAZINE

“I usually wake in a pool of sweat. The thing is, I’m not even scared of spiders,” the woman was nearer middle-aged than she cared to admit, but she still felt twenty-one in her head.

“The mind can play strange tricks on us Moira, especially when we sleep.”

Moira had been having vivid nightmares since she was a child, and yet year after year they kept getting more difficult to ignore. This was why she was now sitting opposite a Psychiatrist — Fiona — perhaps she could find the answers she needed. But after months of sessions,  nothing seemed to change.

“I suppose the spider thing means I’m trapped in something, like  a cobweb… But as for the car crash… I have no idea; I don’t even know how to drive.”

“Can I tell you what I think?” Fiona looked straight into Moira’s glassy eyes, while she nodded uncomfortably, “I’d say, even though, professionally we don’t interpret dreams. I would say that this means you feel you’re losing control. A steering wheel pulled in the wrong direction…”

Fiona twiddled with a pen, which made Moira focus on her long, perfectly manicured nails.

“Moira, is there something in your life you feel you can’t control?”

This statement applied to most of her life. Moira’s life was dull, however, she liked it that way. Every single aspect of her day was planned out, she wouldn’t have it any other way, but yes, it was exhausting.

“Is it so wrong to want perfection?” Moira said, looking up from her hands.

“No, but if it’s causing you restless nights…”

Moira sighed a deep breath out, “then I’m going to have to sacrifice something.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Fiona stood up from the armchair. The room was full of mahogany furniture, and was far too expensive for Moira, in fact her sister paid for it all, to show her how much she needed real professional help.

Fiona moved to a cupboard and pulled out a pile of paper, which she forcefully put into the printer, eventually sitting back down at her desk.

“Sorry about that. Paper was empty.”

She began typing violently, clipping at the keyboard with her fancy nails, “there we go, I’ve just printed out a prescription for some sleeping pills. I know you don’t want this, but it’s going to help you for now.”

Fiona handed the prescription to Moira after signing it, “take care and use sparingly. One a night, okay?”

Moira was dubious about taking the medication, ever since her parents had stopped her from taking them when she was thirteen. But she took the slip anyway. That was a long time ago, however. She was willing to try whatever it took to stop the nightmares.

Moira was anxious to leave now, she knew she had a long journey home ahead of her, and didn’t really like travelling on public transport at the best of times.

“She gave me pills, I’m not too happy about it but...” Moira phoned her sister on the bus.

“Why? That’s good, right?”

“I don’t trust them Ashleigh, you know how Mum felt,” Moira whispered, struggling to think over the noise of the bus. “I can’t hear you properly. I’ll tell you what, I’ll come round tomorrow and we’ll do something, take your mind off everything.”

Before Moira could reply, the call ended.

Two bus rides later, with a pharmacy bag with sleeping pills inside of it, Moira stood staring at her front door. It was definitely a sight for sore eyes.Slippers on her feet, fire turned up high and TV on in the background. Moira now lay on the sofa with her blanket, sipping tea. She was exhausted and thought before she drifted off to sleep downstairs, she’d better take one of her pills. She didn’t trust them but perhaps her sister was right all along. If she just took these pills, maybe, just maybe she could sleep once again. She sat for a while weighing up the pros and cons, but eventually she was so exhausted she no longer cared.

She had left the bag on the table in front of her, unopened. Placing her mug down, Moira ripped it open, avoiding reading the side effects, in case it made her doubtful. She swallowed one of the little pills, with a mouthful of tea.

When her eyes became heavy, Moira curled up within her blanket, finding herself once more driving in the car. This time however, the steering wheel was nowhere to be seen. The landscape outside was the most beautiful she’d ever seen: waves crashed below her, mountains on the horizon, a forest of trees. Moira was somehow driving along a cliff edge; one wrong move and she would tumble to her death.

The road ahead was bumpy. Small stones became rocks; the tyres couldn’t hold that much pressure and there was no way to turn around.

“Stop it! Stop it this instant!” She cried out.

The car didn’t listen to her commands, just revved its engine, zooming faster, unbothered by the rocks that started to crumble from above her. Moira was acutely aware of how precarious her situation was, the wheels teetering on the edge of the cliff face. The more power the car used, the more rocks from above trickled down and crashed in front of her. There was nothing she could do, she couldn’t swerve out of the way, without a steering wheel.

“Help me, Moira!” A squeak came from behind her.

It was bad enough that she was falling to her death, but to turn and see her baby sister in the back seat. That terrified look in her eyes. She looked like she did as a child, but Moira couldn’t differentiate between reality and fiction. This was happening now. Without a moment to lose, Moira unfastened her seatbelt, flying towards her sister as the car tumbled downwards. With her arms outstretched, she reached for her. Her sister’s piercing scream echoed in her ears, and those small, terrified eyes seemed to vanish before her. Then, everything went black.

“You’re a failure,” a small voice called out.

Her eyes were stapled shut. Movement, quick and light-footed, crawled on her face, she could feel its soft legs upon her cheeks. One hairy leg managed to pry open her eye, the other still firmly closed. A large, spindly creature wrapped itself around her.

Moira was paralyzed with fear, unable to move. Only her eyes shifted frantically, darting around in a desperate search for her sister. All she could see was the crumbling path and the darkness, while the spider spun her webs.

“You don’t have to do this!” Moira tried to say but all that came out were petrified screams.

Still petrified, she felt its legs around her lips, the cobweb strands tightening, she couldn’t speak no matter how she tried. Moira lay frozen on the ground, unable to move even the slightest bit. Gagged and bound, her hands and feet fastened together with the spider’s silk. Like in her life, she felt bound, the spider had trapped her where she belonged. Somewhere in her mind, she knew she deserved this. She knew these spiders wanted to keep her tied down, mirroring her own life, she rethought every decision she’d ever made.

The last thing before the world turned black. The never-ending vacuum that led her gaze upwards, as though the sky expanded forever.

Moira woke in a state of panic and confusion. Her body was drenched in sweat, as though she had showered in her sleep. She didn’t find herself curled on the sofa, the sun bursting through the blinds, but rather in the passenger seat of a car, overlooking the beach ahead.

“What’s going on?” Moira asked, trying to wake up.

“You’re in the car, we’re going to the beach, remember?” Ashleigh was driving next to her, giving her a comforting smile.

“Oh...” Moira said, looking down at her sweaty clothes.

“Isn’t this nice, we never get to spend time together nowadays,” Ashleigh continued; eyes focused on driving.

Moira just nodded in agreement, watching the landscape. This couldn’t be happening, she hadn’t been here before, and yet she knew this pathway like the back of her hand, she had been here in her dreams.

“We need to stop,” Moira worried, shifting.

“What? Why?” Ashleigh looked away for a moment, both hands firmly on the wheel, looking concerned.

“It’s my dream, it’s real,” Moira kept saying repeatedly, rocking in her chair, the seatbelt moving with her.

“Moira! Calm down! Let me drive!”

Moira couldn’t stand a moment more. Reaching out, she grabbed the wheel from her sister’s grip.

“I can’t let you!” Moira cried, “I won’t.”

It was all her doing. She was the one who caused it. It was her that swerved off the road. Tumbling down, just as Moira had relived over and over in her dreams, and now it was happening for real. She felt things she never had before, her heart pounding in her chest, the shaking of her hands.

The car came tumbling to the floor. Her eyesight was fuzzy. When she turned to look around, she screamed out in pain, but there she was, her little Ashleigh, lying a few meters away, crushed by the weight of the car. Moira tried to speak but couldn’t. She felt weaker, as if she could just fall into a deep sleep. Darkness and faded voices, that’s all Moira heard for a few weeks. She was frozen in time, gagged, and bound, like a sleep she couldn’t awaken from, but she was forever aware. The dirt felt soft upon her head, laying against the hardwood. Tucked away on the ground, she lay where the creatures frolicked. Worms, bugs, spiders. Unlike her dream, she wasn’t nearly as terrified, but the feel of their hairy legs as they nestled down on her skin, was something unimaginable.

Nothing could have prepared Moira for this. Even her own mind. She could have been trapped within a cycle of her own undoing. Anything was possible, but as she lay beneath the grass, letting time go back, creatures made their homes within her nostrils, deep within her rotting skin.

She finally realised, there was no fresh start for her. Everything she wished would happen to her had failed. She re-evaluated everything. She had wasted her life worrying about things she could not control. This had always been inevitably for her.  She had foretold her own demise, and before Moira could grasp the concept of her thoughts, she was already dead in the ground.