Ah wretched dreams. The psyche's absorption of and fixation with a topic of a book will seep too deep and taint the mind and its journeys in rest. Outer observation warps into hideousness, entangles with deep-seated insecurities and unsettled dreams arise from the brew.
I looked just as I do now in this fabrication. My hair, my eyes, my lips, my skin, my brows; pick any facial feature and it was unchanged in my dream. Even my skinniness and short height were retained. Had I looked in the mirror in that dark fantasy, it would have been the same face I view in a real mirror during wakefulness.
But I was called ugly. I was scorned and cast out from society for being such a wretched looking being. I was hideous to them and none would own me as their friend. I was also poor, and poverty increases the crime of being grotesque.
Thus, none would marry me. I was somehow stuck in a world of modern conveniences mixed with old world traditions and prejudices, and in that sphere, it was disgraceful to be a poor, ugly spinster. But that looked to be my doom. I was downcast and crushed. No man would release me from my shame for I was not worth it.
But one. One man stretched out his hand and offered to save me at least from the disgrace of singularity for the rest of my life. This was no good fortune though. The man who struck out his hand had only scanty wealth, his features were bloated and uncomely, his person was coldly charitable. He was harsh and unloving, but generous. He did not love me. Not a whit. He did not even so much as like me. He took me as his wife out of mere Christian piety. He could not stand to see a fellow creature cast to the wayside when he could take it under his wing.
And so he took me, begrudgingly, as his wife; and ne never lost a chance to remind me of how pitiful, ugly, and wretched I was, and how lucky and how very very unworthy I was to have found in him a companion to save me from ruin.
Another girl lived in the house with us, and she was ragingly jealous that I had won a man to husband, whom she had wanted. She too heaped verbal abuse upon me. She, having no kindness in her heart, was even harsher and crueler than he was. My husband only tried to keep me in "my place" and keep me acquainted with "the truth." The girl just wanted to torment and wound me.
There were other, more degrading physical aspects of the dream but, although not explicit, I don't find them worthy of mention.
Why does my mind torture me so? I awoke this morning almost in tears. Wretched night.
I recovered. I rarely remember my dreams though, so the few times I do, I always remember the ones I find most traumatic. This dream has lingered close and bruised me often, but I have been working at laughing it off. Smile and shake my hair like a pony shakes it's mane. It was only a dream. It was only a dream.
I turn, I turn to the wind and the blue sky. To the lawn dusted with leaves. I pace, and I sing, and I think. Eyes glaze over in the beauty of the too cold day with meditations beyond my surroundings.
Thus most of my day was spent. Thus was my mind diverted.