Dreams by Emile Benoit

You’re supposed to remain calm in an emergency, even in a dream as hordes of hungry jackals surround you discussing dinner plans while you’re two hours late for the only plane leaving this nightmare until tomorrow night. Good decisions come from a mind free of panic and confusion, yet it’s often impossible to remain composed when your hair is on fire in the desert or your lover whispers that you’re inadequate. And if you find yourself, a claustrophobic anxious person on the best of days, trapped beneath the rubble of a bombed out parking garage, it will be the panic that kills you. The tree of life sometimes produces fruit so poisonous that we can’t even dream of an antidote.

Emile Benoit is a freelance writer who lives in southern California with his wife and two daughters, Miranda and Brady.