The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Chapter IV
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

I thus give the reader some slight abstraction of my Oriental dreams—which always filled me with such amazement. The monstrous scenery of Serpentine horror—that absorbed me for awhile in sheer astonishment.  

Sooner or later came a reflux of feeling that swallowed me up astonishment—leaving not so much in terror as in hatred and abomination of what I saw.  

Over every form, and threat, and punishment, and dim sightless incarceration—brooded a sense of Reptilian eternity and Crocodile infinity that drove me into an oppressive madness.  

Into these dreams, with one or two slight exceptions—that’s where examples of sheer physical horror entered.  All opium fantasies before that—had been moral and spiritual terrors.  

But here the main agents were ugly snakes or blood-curdling crocodiles; exceptionally evil and phallic creatures. The cursed anacondas, vipers, cobras and water moccasins became for me—the ultimate object of more horror than almost all the rest.  

I was compelled to live with them though—as if seemingly for centuries. I escaped sometimes—only to find myself with them in fetid swamps and jungles. 

The abominable phallic head of the crocodile—with it's straining, leering eyes. Looking at me, multiplied into a thousand repetitions—as I stood there loathing and fascinated.  

So often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams that many times the very same dream was broken up in the very same way—I’d hear gentle hissing voices speaking to me. I hear everything when I’m sleeping—and instantly I’d wake up.  

It would be broad noon—and there was a brand-new pair of shiny crocodile-skin shoes at the foot of my bed. I was simply and totally horrified.

I’d open my bedroom closet door—and there would be a crocodile-skin leather belt waiting for me. I was completely freaked out.

I simply hated the awful transition from the damned crocodile and snake dreams—to the even worse wide-awake, unutterable monsters and abortions of real life.

The sight of something previously seemingly innocent since infancy—suddenly became the sight of something unutterably creepy and full of revulsion. 

I’m talking about standing nude in front of my bedroom mirror—my once human appearance now something I simply couldn’t forebear. 

The sight of that snakeoid, phallic, reptilian Serpent Thing—hanging semi-erect down there between my legs. Staring and grinning at me—with its jagged teeth and Jurassic crocodile eyes staring at me.