Dream #3326 – The Archivist at the End of the Garden

I found the Archivist again tonight,
kneeling in the frostbitten garden,
feeding passwords to the snails.
He said the moon was misfiled,
that someone had switched its label
with a jar of counterfeit memories
left humming on the back shelf
of the sky.

He asked if I remembered the Agreement.
I told him I’d misplaced the paperwork
somewhere between the dream
with the burning carousel
and the morning I woke up
with someone else’s heartbeat
ticking in my throat.

He nodded –
as if this were the most predictable
of catastrophes –
and handed me a cracked teacup
full of static.
“Drink,” he whispered,
“before the clocks notice you’re awake.”

So I drank.
And the garden folded inward
like a paper fortune-teller,
and all the snails began reciting
the names  of people
I haven’t become yet.

The Archivist smiled,
wiped the moonlight from his hands,
and told me gently
that the world would end
three times tonight,
but only one version
would remember to write it down.

N.P.: “Early To Bed” – Bjorn Berge