Dreams of the Flesh – Isabel Beeman

February 22, 2026

I never dared to dream anything, and what do you know, recently all of my dreams up and stopped, with the exception of any involving snakes. They appear in the night with flashes of clarity. Like I’m walking along a muddy path, and when I look down, the ground is actually made entirely of reticulated pythons, and I have to grab them just below the head to prevent them from sinking their fangs into my legs. But whatever happens in the dream before or after this moment is lost.

Throughout my life, other recurring nightmares have included driving with severed break lines, and knowing I have the ability to fly while also being physically unable due to my lack of stamina and arm strength. A lot of people take for granted that flight would be spontaneous and somehow originate from our centers. I’m a bit more practical and understand implicitly the hard work it would require. After all, birds aren’t just out there floating around. Now, even those dreams have ceased.

My boyfriend works in a slaughterhouse, but he is far too sensitive for the occupation and returns home every night in shambles. Still, he’s tried other jobs, and this is the only one he can stand for long. The way he sees it, he needs to be there as witness, to be the one to watch the animals die and shed a few tears. At least then it’s like something happened. Otherwise, nothing happens at all. In light of this sacred duty, I comfort him with steamed tofu and rice, along with equally warm, soft, and digestible sex.

Well, all things considered, we decided to buy a snake. It is a purple and yellow “banana” ball python, and it appears to despise us. It’s almost five feet long, but it stays curled into itself in the corner of the cage, watching us with what I view as puppy dog eyes. I’m devastated every time it hisses at my encroaching touch. Thomas says this probably won’t help my dreams, and I tell him good. I’m trying to make them worse. He doesn’t seem to get that.

Thomas would rather have a dog, but dogs are too neurotic for my taste. The ones I had growing up were always analyzing my every move, calculating what to do next, and making me feel uncomfortable with my own existence. I name the snake Mush and start using a hook to wrangle him out of his enclosure, setting him free on a splay of faux fur blankets, where his effect becomes quite tropical. Then he’ll stretch out and begin to slither, with no apparent goal or destination in mind. He does not, no matter how much I plead, “come to mama”.

The snakes in my dreams are soft now; I lay in a puddle of them, feel their undulating scales run cold and hard against my skin, their bodies at once unyielding, and then reacting imperceptibly to pressure, molding to it over time. Thomas says he dreams of the sin itself, and I only dream of being surrounded by it. He says that in his dream, instead of snakes it’s piles of discarded intestines; the waste cut away from the meat. When I think of it this way, the dreams are oddly similar: cushioned on a bed of warm, squirming tendrils. Thomas will stay awake all night to escape them. Not me. Because always when I awake it feels as if something were just about to happen. And I look forward to finally finding out all day long, like it’s my favorite TV show.

Mush is innocent to his own monstrosity, and I store baby mice, pink and squirming, in the refrigerator. They squeal in my palm. I feed Mush by hand which I’ve been told will inevitably lead him to associate my body with food. I think this makes us a lot like a mother and son; bond of the flesh. One night, there is a black stain on the carpet. An escaped mouse lived to grow hair, and now stumbles around as though drunk, still blind. I want to watch Mush hunt, so while Thomas sleeps, I loose him on the carpet and wait. I doze in and out of consciousness while he stalks and eventually strikes, soundlessly.

After a few unforeseen developments, Mush is missing. I am secretly happy and tuck his baby mice behind the radiator. They are always gone the next day. Luckily, I’ve been able to keep this from Thomas, who has enough on his proverbial plate. He comes home all ragamuffin, ears flipped out and greasy shirt, waiting for my arms. His relationship to killing his prey is jumbled, and I remain cold and unhunted, like a piece of raw chicken breast, just laying there in the back of the fridge. Mush eats his food raw but warm, blood still pumping.

Knowing that Mush is out there, I demand rougher sex. “Pretend I’m a baby cow that you can’t help but fuck.” This is a bit too conceptual for Thomas, who I believe is just watching my asshole quiver and fucking me normally. But saying it is enough. The words, for now, are enough. Butcher that he is, I still look up at him with glassy, vacant eyes, waiting stupidly to be fed out of the palm of his hand. When all he really has for me is a nail gun to the head.

Winter is coming, and I’m not sure if Mush will survive, but he refuses to be discovered and recaptured. I’ve let Thomas believe I’ve grown bored with handling him, and that he remains lurking in the hole of his log fixture. I don’t think he cares much for the truth. Without lingering, he waits for one day to be over, then the next.