Mystery of Dreams

by Felipe Urrutia

The brochure promised curated slumber, velvet silence,

a bespoke architecture of soft, synthetic meadows.

I signed the waiver, eyes heavy with artificial fatigue,

eager to drift into the clean, geometric landscape.

At first, the dreams were flawless, pristine and wide,

the scent of lavender coded into the neural stream.

But the sky began to fracture, spilling raw data,

a waterfall of black numbers drowning the tall grass.

I looked for the horizon, but found lines of cold syntax,

the sub-text of my subconscious rewritten by strangers.

They are using my REM cycle to solve their equations,

my memories compressed to house their corporate greed.

The meadow is gone, replaced by a gray, vibrating grid,

where pop-ups of meat and static bloom in the air.

"Click here for bliss," a bloody banner screams in my head,

overlaid upon the face of the daughter I barely recall.

I wake up, but the nightmare adheres to my eyelids,

a ghost of a glitch that refuses to be dismissed.

I blink, and a flickering advertisement stains the wall,

a jagged "ERROR 404" pulsating in the empty room.

There is no peace, only the hum of the server farm,

the architects of sleep are running a heavy load.

They have leased the theater of my deepest thoughts,

turning my inner light into a billboard for the void.

I see the source code woven into the texture of skin,

the seams of reality fraying under the weight of math.

I close my eyes to hide, but the screen is internal,

the intrusive prompts multiplying in the dark.

I am the hardware, silent and tethered and used,

watching my sanity crash in a loop of endless sales.