The Sleeper

[rix_scaedu]

I wrote this to lilfluff's sixth prompt.

Awareness of it sits on the cusp of the human mind where most of us prefer not to look.  Lovecraft almost understood what was out there but wisely swathed his almost-knowledge in the tales of Cthulhu and his ilk, protecting his mind with a veil of fiction.

It dwells not in the space between stars but in the space between minds.  It sleeps and while it sleeps it consumes the stray florescence of our thoughts.  It is what happens to the word on the tip of the tongue, the intent lost when you leave the room and the bright idea forgotten.

Get too close to it, pay attention, get caught in its fascination, brush against its dreams and you may lose your mind’s contents. You could become a lost life appealed for in the newspapers with your picture under the headline along with words of supplication from the authorities.  Useless words if the dreamer between minds has taken all thought of you from the world along with your own thoughts.

As long as we think and imagine and create it feeds without waking, casting only small shadows on our minds, creating ripples that barely mark the surface of our agreed reality.  A stray thought here or there, even, occasionally, a mind lost to emptiness, these are the prices we pay to keep it fed, sated and asleep.

There are no tales of it waking.  There are no memories of it waking.  No-one has ever managed to quench the imagination of our entire people.  That is our defence mechanism, there in our dreams and our thoughts.  For if it were to wake…