It was hazy. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at. It was like coming out of a tunnel into bright sunlight. He thought he saw someone - but then they were gone. And then he was sitting at a table. The table was tiny. The chair he was sitting in was tiny. There was a plate in front of him - a tiny plate with a tiny knife and fork. He looked up - there was a tiny man sitting opposite him. The tiny man was wearing blue overalls.

‘Are you going to eat that?’ - The tiny man asked.

He looked down at the tiny plate and there was a skinned cat - bloody and horrible to look at on the plate.

The room was so small that his head was touching the ceiling.

The man was now standing by the door.

‘Your shift is starting….’ - said the man.

He stood from the chair, and crawled to the door, managing to squeeze through the door frame. He was in a narrow, tiny corridor. He crawled down the hallway. He got to a room, which was hot and full of machines pumping steam out of them. He knew what to do. He started shoveling coal with a tiny shovel into a tiny furnace. He looked into the furnace, and a woman was inside of it. She was burning.

‘What are you doing in there?’ - He asked.

The woman was on fire. Her skin burned and bubbled. Then she was normal again.

‘Are you talking to me?’ - She asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I am fucking burning to death, what does it look like?’ - She spat.

He carried on shoveling the coal.

He was now on the bridge of the submarine. All the sailors were tiny, including the bridge. The captain was looking through the periscope before looking over at him.

‘You better look at this’ - said the captain.

Through the periscope he could see that a woman was being fucked. She was blonde. He wasn’t sure if she was enjoying it. Then a dog was attacking the man who was fucking the woman. The dog was ripping lumps of flesh from the man, but the man was still fucking the woman. The woman’s face was twisted. It was the woman from the furnace.

‘Hello sailor’ - she said to him.

Then he was back on the bridge, and the captain was looking through the periscope.

You better look at this’ - said the captain.

He looked through the periscope and saw that a dark haired woman and the man were walking the dog in a park. The man threw a ball for the dog. They all looked happy.

He was back in the tiny room with the tiny table. The man and the dark haired woman were sitting at the table.

‘You are going to have to answer for everything, sooner or later’ - said the man. That man was him.

There was food on the table. He picked up a tiny fork and ate some of the meat. He lifted the slices of meat, but there were black insects crawling under the meat, wriggling and scurrying.

The dog was sitting at his feet, on the floor. He handed the dog some of the meat, but the dog bit his hand. Then he was looking through the periscope again. The woman was being fucked and was winking at him.

He was back in the tiny room at the tiny table. He put his hand in his mouth and pulled out a black insect, and then another one.

‘You are rotten inside’ - said the dog.

The tiny man in the blue overalls sat down opposite him.

‘Don’t listen to them’ - he said - ‘We are all rooting for you. They won't catch you!’

He was back on the bridge.

‘You better look at this’ - said the captain again.

Through the periscope he could see himself and a woman with dark hair walking in the park with the dog. He threw the ball for the dog. He looked happy.

He woke up.

He lay on the bed for a while, staring at the ceiling. He hadn’t had a dream for so long. All he did was sleep - like turning a machine off for 10 hours, but having no dreams. This dream was so vivid. The woman. He was on a submarine, a tiny submarine. The woman in the furnace, burning. And then being fucked - by the man. He remembered the dog. The dog had bit him. He checked his mouth - there were no insects in there.

The little man said they were rooting for him. And then he was with the woman and they were happy.

He had stopped taking the aripiprazole that the doctors had prescribed him 8 days ago. Aripiprazole was an antipsychotic that stabilized him - made him ‘normal’. That was why he hadn’t been dreaming - because of the drugs.

He climbed out of bed and pulled the box out from under it. He lifted the lid, revealing his pornographic magazines. He took out his favorite.

The cover of the magazine was glossy, and lurid. A blonde woman was standing with her ass spread, as she looked over her shoulder and smiled at the camera.

The man climbed back into the bed, and found the pages he wanted. It was the model from the front cover - her name was Jesse Ryder. The man masturbated whilst looking at the photos of Jesse Ryder.

He was feeling better after stopping the drugs. The world looked sharper, and he felt more connected to it. Smells, sounds, and colors. Everything seemed more vivid and exciting. Jesse Ryder seemed more exciting. He had been unable to maintain an erection on the drugs. But now he was dreaming and now he was masturbating - and the world seemed more vivid. More exciting.

It had been a long while since he had been excited. He knew he had to stop, so he had visited a psychiatrist. He had lied about everything. He hadn’t told the doctors about what he liked and what he did. He just knew he had to stop - or he would get caught.

That was four years ago.

He was diagnosed with manic bipolar disorder, and the doctors had put him on the drugs to even him out. ‘Make the highs not so high, and the lows not so low. More even and balanced’ - the doctor had said.

It was like living with mesh curtains wrapped around him. Everything was muffled, damped down. All of his urges were gone, and everything else seemed to wither along with those lost urges. He felt like a tiger caged in a zoo.

That was why he stopped taking the drugs - and now everything felt sharper, more crisp, and more detailed.

He looked at Jesse Ryder’s eyes. She seemed to be alive, and looking at him. He thought he could see her eyes move a little, like she was moving. He looked at her wet lips, and they sparkled and glistened. He could almost see her breath coming out. And her nostrils - flared. Her cheeks were blushed, she liked it when he looked at her. He felt a connection with Jesse Ryder. He thought he saw her move - like her head had turned a little.

‘I love it when you look at me’ - said Jesse Ryder said.

He looked at her mouth, at her shiny red lips - was she speaking, or was he imagining it?

Jesse Ryder was staring right at him.

‘I’m talking to you’ - said Jesse Ryder from the pages of the magazine - ‘I know what you like.’

She moved again.

She was the woman from the dream. The woman in the furnace. The woman being fucked.

He looked into her eyes in the photo. She winked at him.

‘Can you hear me?’ - He asked her.

He stared at the magazine. She seemed to be frozen. The sparkle had left her eyes, and the wetness of her lips had dried up. She was just a photo in a magazine.

He closed the magazine and stared at the cover. On the cover it read “Jesse Ryder opens up for you!”

He climbed off the bed and put the magazine back in the box, pushing it back under the bed. He walked to the bathroom and washed his face. The bottle of aripiprazole was on the shelf above the sink.

He brushed his teeth and had a piss.

It was Sunday. No work. Just masturbating.

He went to the kitchen and drank some orange juice and then lit a cigarette. He stared out of the apartment window. People were walking along the sidewalk far below - they looked like insects. He checked his mouth again - there weren't any insects inside of it.

He smoked his cigarette. Was she really talking to me? He thought. Did she come alive, and speak to me? She was in my dream - I was with her in my dream. And then she spoke to me from the magazine page. Or was he imagining it? It seemed real - he could hear her, and she moved.

He walked back into the bedroom and took the magazine out of the box, placing it on the kitchen table. He sat down and smoked his cigarette. He stared at the cover of the magazine.

Jesse Ryder was flat and two dimensional. He stared at her eyes, waiting for them to move. He opened the magazine and found the photos of her. In the first photo she was facing the camera, wearing a fishnet body suit. Her large breasts strained at the mesh material. He stared at her eyes again, waiting.

He lit another cigarette.

He stared at the photo for an hour.

‘It’s me Jesse’ - he whispered.

Jesse Ryder remained flat and lifeless. He stood and emptied the ashtray, but as he sat down - out of the corner of his eye - he saw her move. She had been looking at him, following his movements as he walked across the room. She had turned her head.

He froze. He turned his head back to the magazine and there she was, frozen.

He lit another cigarette and he stared at the magazine.

‘Can you hear me?’ - He said

‘Yes’ - Jesse Ryder replied in a soft voice.

He pulled down his shorts and started masturbating.

‘Why did you stop?’ - Jesse asked.

‘I’ve started again’ - he said - ‘sorry.’

‘Not that’ - said Jesse Ryder - ‘the killing.’

He stopped masturbating.

‘I had to - they were going to catch me.’

‘No they wouldn’t.’

He started masturbating again.

‘You have to start again’ - Jesse persisted.

‘Okay, I will.’

‘And no more pills’ - Jesse reminded him - ‘I want to be with you, and the pills will stop me from seeing you, and being with you.’

‘Okay’ - he said, his breaths increasing.

‘I want you to start killing again. I want you to find girls that look like your mother and I want you to kill them’ - Jesse commanded.

‘Okay.’

‘The more you kill, the more real everything will be. Just like your dream. Everything will be real!’

‘Okay!’

‘And she will come back’ - said Jesse.

‘Who?’

‘Your mother.’

The man masturbated furiously, and then ejaculated.

Jesse Ryder winked at him.