The Sleeping Scientist

The scientist was sleeping one night and he dreamt of a creature that he had never seen before. The dreams continued every night, with the figure gaining more features each time, further intriguing the interest of the sleeping scientist. Each time he saw it the creature sported new things; its formless body grew and grew inside of him, gaining eyes and ears and teeth and hair. The being grew more feminine each time too, becoming fluid with curves made of breasts and hips. Its mouth formed into soft, pouting lips and it began to speak to him, "I am here to be your muse." The scientist began to speak but his voice was silent and he noticed that in the process he was losing the things that made up his own form. He lost his eyes, his ears, and his mouth. He lost his mind and the fingers he had used to write down observations, phone numbers, and to-do lists. The more he dreamt of the woman, the more perfect her flesh became and the more he lost of himself. The scientist began to dream that he no longer existed and that he was the sole possession of this thing that he had somehow created. He was a scratch inside her brain that she couldn't itch and the more emaciated the scientist became in these dreams the more the muse began to pay him attention. One night while she was carrying him inside the crease between her thumb and forefinger, she squeezed him for a second, just to see if he was still alive, if he was still real. In these dreams he had become so small and lacking in detail that it was hard to even tell that he was there, let alone that he could feel pain. The scientist, unable to see or feel or hear, made a movement like a paramecium and the woman could feel him squirm a bit.

The woman felt his existence and decided that what she was doing was not right, that she had taken advantage of his loving obsession and had used it to become the beautifully full thing she was now. She grabbed of some of her own flesh and added it to his, making him larger, too large to hold in her hand. She took the soil from the earth and added it to his voided body, making him taller and bigger and stronger each time. She reached into her own head and grabbed one of her own eyes, pulling it out and sticking it into him so that he could see. She slipped off her left ear and sewed it to the side of his slowly developing body. He could hear and see and feel again, even if had lost most of the things he had before going to bed. She held the doughy scientist up to her face and whispered into his ear as he looked at her in love. She tried to think of the perfect words to say but nothing came so she said this, "You sacrificed your self so I could be, and now I have fallen in love with whatever it is that made you." The scientist smiled and winked his eye, laughing louder than anyone with a mouth has ever known. The woman pushed around her soft flesh until there was a spot on the left side of her chest, beating red where her heart was contained. She took the body of the scientist and slowly massaged him into her. They became one being with one eye, one ear, one mouth, one heart, and one soul, one everything.

The scientist woke up inside a hospital room, many years after he had fallen asleep. The coma had left him blind in one eye and slightly deaf but he could speak and be heard. He looked up and the first person he saw was a woman who looked like she had been drawn on canvas. She was tall and liquid and when he woke, she took her hand and rubbed his hair between her fingers.