The Heads Dream - April 2nd, 2017

I'm standing on someone's lawn, talking to a girl through her bedroom window. She's telling me to go away or she'll call the cops but I don't understand why. For some reason, I feel like I know her, as if we're dating or something. I ask why she's yelling at me and telling me to go away. She yells back "you know what you did!" and points to the grass I'm standing on.

Next to my foot is a woman's decapitated head. I cover my mouth for fear of vomiting. Her eyes are blue, she has brown hair and orange lipstick: her facial expression is utterly mortifying. I nudge the head with my foot and then look back up at the girl in the window.

"What's that got to do with me?"

"What are you talking about? You killed her, you sicko!"

"What? I didn't kill anybody!"

"How do you explain him then?"

She points towards the bins (one black, one blue for recycling and one brown for compost): there's a bald man's decapitated head lying there. I didn't bother to look at his features this time: I simply picked up his head like a bowling ball, with two fingers in his eye sockets and one in his nostril and threw it in the brown bin.

The girl starts retching and pulls the curtains closed. I stand there, protesting my innocence loudly, yelling "I didn't do this!" over and over again, hoping she'd come back and open the curtains. When she didn't, I decided to give up yelling.

I looked down at the other head. It was disgusting and I couldn't stand to look at it anymore. I pulled down the sleeves of my jumper and picked it up, also throwing it into the recycling bin. I realised that even if I hadn't put my hands on that head, I had put it on the other. The police would be able to trace it back to me, even though I was sure I didn't kill them. Then again, I couldn't remember if I'd killed them: I might have done it earlier and not realised.

I go through the girl's front door and into a hotel corridor, all white, reminiscent of the ones from The Matrix. I look down to see I'm holding a key card: it's a white rectangle with a thick, black stripe on it. I'm not sure which door this key is for but, coincidentally, it opened the first one I tried it on.

Inside, Lili and my film teacher (Ian) were packing a large, navy suitcase with clothes. I ask them what they're doing and they give me a confused look. Lili explains that Ian is taking us to a talk in a bookshop where they're discussing the representation of capitalism in movies. I don’t remember agreeing to it but I decide it's best to just go with them and see what it's like.

Cut to a corner shop. We're all sitting cross-legged on the floor (about 14 of us) in front of the front desk of a corner shop. I turn to Lili and ask what happened to going to the bookshop. Lili turns to me, confused, pointing out that this was the bookshop. I didn't argue.

The speaker came out from the backroom: she was a small woman who wore an ugly, yellow dress with a lavender print on it over a long sleeved, khaki top. I remember thinking how horrendous her fashion sense was. She started the talk by describing the film 'They Live' (1988) and I nodded in agreement. I zoned out for most of the talk until I heard her say "Jesus", which is when I decided to listen again.

I noticed that Ian was suddenly standing and looking at her angrily. I turned to Lili but she'd disappeared. Ian was yelling at the woman, telling her that the inclusion of Christianity in the talk was unnecessary and to "stop forcing your stupid religious propaganda down everyone's throats". The woman told him he'd burn in hell and that Jesus is the light of the world, so she only listens to him. I remember standing up and agreeing with Ian, saying religion wasn't relevant to the discussion. I also chastised her for arranging it in a corner shop and not a bookshop.

The woman started to argue that religion is always relevant, especially in film, and that was when I recognised her as Mrs. Carmody from the film 'The Mist' (2007), the fanatic Christian nut-job. I nudged Ian and told him to drop it: we weren't going to get anywhere with her.

As he gave up, Billy Ray Cyrus walked into the shop. Carmody became flustered and started fawning over him, saying she was a big fan and asked if she could get him anything.

"I'll just get a pack of smokes."
"Of course, Billy!"
"It's Mr. Billy Ray, actually."

"Oh, sorry, Mr. Cyrus."
"No, it's Mr. Billy Ray. Cyrus is my daughter's name."
"Sorry, Mr. Billy."

"What? No! If it's Billy, it's just Billy, but I like to be addressed as Mr. Billy Ray."

This back and forth went on for a few minutes until the woman became so irritated and confused that she pulled a hunting knife from out of her dress and held it to his throat.

"I'm sorry I keep getting your name wrong! Lord knows I tried. But you are insufferable, Mr. Billy Ray Cyrus. The Lord bids me to rid you from his sight."

"Hey, you got the name right!"

With that, she sliced his head clean off and it tumbled to the ground. She pointed the knife at me and asked me to pick it up. I said no and she looked confused. She told me that I hadn't had a problem "picking up the other two". I yelled at her, asking how she knew about that. She told me I was the one who kept killing people and she was covering it up. Then I woke up.