The Nightmare

My hands tremble as I open the file containing the hideous words about to dirty this page. I pray to you, if you are an accidental reader, pass this by. Click to the next blog and do not let this page contaminate you. If you are not a casual reader, please don't hate me. Please, if you feel the disgust for me that I feel for myself, please try to understand, I need to get this out. I need to purge it. I need to cast it away from myself. And remember, it's only a dream.

"If we shadows have offended,
"think but this; and all is mended
"that you have but slumbered here
"while these visions did appear
"and this weak and idle theme
"no more yielding but a dream.
"Gentles--do not reprehend
"if you pardon, we will mend."

(Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream)

*** WARNING - ADULT CONTENT ***

When I open my eyes, everything is black. There is a crackling tension in the air that makes the hairs on my arm tingle. There is a soft hhhsssssshhhh sound in the hallway beyond my door. I tense up – every muscle taut with fear. In the doorway, the darkness deepens into a void of sight. Huge and menacing, the shadow consumes everything around it. I want to run, to hide, to disappear. The shadow knows I am here – I can feel its intensity focused on me. I try to cry out but a hand closes over my throat, burning hot, and steals my words. I try to pull the covers over me but my body has become a statue: cold, hard marble, unyielding and immovable. The shadow grows. It approaches me in my bed, growing larger and darker. Soon the shadow stands at the foot of my bed. The room has gone ice cold. Goose flesh has raised on my stone arms. I don't move. I don't speak. I just stare at the sensory void that is the shadow. It moves again, coming around the corner of the bed and approaching with a fluid hhhsssssshhhh that I now recognize as bare feet moving against carpet. The shadow now engulfs my entire vision. The smell of Old Spice hangs faintly in the air, like a memory of a memory. The shadow void forms into a shape. It is a face just inches from my own with a solid body behind the outline of the face. The void, the all-consuming shadow, is a man. His face captures my eyes. Panic has welled up from the pit of my stomach into my throat, closing it and making breathing difficult. I have to escape! I have to get away, to hide, maybe to just disappear! He opens his mouth and it is a vast stinking pit of despair. If I can't escape, I will be consumed by this blackness of body and spirit.

*** If I am lucky, I wake up here. ***

But there is no escape. The blackness turns his head ever so slightly. His lips brush my ear and a stab of pain like a red-hot poker seers through my soul, scorching my heart. Still I cannot move, cannot escape. A deep voice with the throaty rattle of a long-time smoker hisses in my ear – an all-consuming sound that reverberates through my mind and vibrates through my entire body. “Wake up, Little Frog. It's time to pay the piper. Wake up, Froggie.” A rough hand with fingers like the icy grip of death slides along my cheek. It would be a caress were it not steeped in poison. My head turns away from the touch as if controlled by someone else. The voice has a life of its own and has the power to destroy me or to crush my spirit and shatter my soul. “That's my girl,” it says with smug assurance. I close my eyes as tight as they can go. My eyeballs feel like they are being squeezed in a vise and gold flecks dart through the non-vision behind my eyelids. A hand, the same frozen sand-paper touch, brushes against my bare arm as it lightly lifts the thin barrier between my terrified body and his all-encompassing void. The blanket pulls away slowly, almost casually, gently. My skin prickles as much from the sudden cold air as from the fear of what is surely to come. With the covers removed, the hand claims a new target. I am shivering. Fear is beginning to overcome my senses. The same fiercely gentle grip pulls at my nightgown, slowly, carefully, meticulously guiding it up higher and higher. A blanket of fog begins to settle over my heart, easing the sharp pain ripping it apart. The acidic voice in my ear continues to whisper what are supposed to be comforting, reassuring words to me. “Easy now, let's get this out of the way. That's my girl. Up now,” it intones. The blanket of fog overcomes the voice but my body,as if not my own, complies with the unheard directions and physical guidance. I roll to one side, feeling the chill of the sheets beneath me in the new position. My nightgown pulls higher. I roll the other way, towards the abominable shadow void. The fog has taken over my breathing which has become slow and rhythmic. The gown is pulled over my head as I sit up like a zombie. My thoughts pull away from my fear and a voice far older than my own begins to count inside my mind. 1, TWO, 3, FOUR, 5, SIX, 7, EIGHT... counting in the pattern I learned in dance class. All my scared thoughts are pushed aside and drowned out by the soothing counting. My body, still obeying the commands I no longer hear, pulls itself out of bed. Cold air stings the bare skin and I begin to shiver hard enough to make my hands tremble and I have to keep my teeth clamped shut to keep them from chattering. With hands going quickly numb from the fog, I push down my panties and take a step towards the bed. My eyes are tight shut, my hands clasp behind my head and my bare feet are sunk into the carpet like tree root gripping sandy soil. As his hand moves toward me, a sinister shadow in the eternal darkness, felt not seen, the fog begins to wrap me in a tight blanket of safe nothingness. Just before the safety takes me away, his biting hands collide harshly with my thigh and begins to slide up. The fog rescues me and I am sitting high in the tree in the front yard with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. I dangle my legs and let them swing freely beneath me as I hold comfortably the branch on my left. I relax and begin to smile. I am invisible and invincible from my treetop perch. But the world starts to spin. The tree tips and I fall from it. I close my eyes against the impending impact with the unforgiving ground. But instead of the expected impact, I fall seamlessly back into the body I had just fled. I ache and burn and sting. My chest feels crushed. My nightgown has been replaced,as well as my covers. I clutch them desperately as if they are the only thing that can keep me from falling into the fiery pits of Hell. The shadow void is retreating back to the door with a calculated hhhsssssshhhh. His caustic voice slices through the air between us and pierces my heart. “If you would just be good, this wouldn't be necessary.” I feel hot tears appear on my cheeks.

*** Then I wake up, still hurting, still crying, still terrified.***

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE CORRECTION - to fix the dream, I am re-writing it, as per the shrink

When I open my eyes, everything is black. There is a crackling tension in the air that makes the hairs on my arm tingle. There is a soft hhhsssssshhhh sound in the hallway beyond my door. I tense up – every muscle taut with fear. In the doorway, the darkness deepens into a void of sight. Huge and menacing, the shadow consumes everything around it. I want to run, to hide, to disappear. The shadow knows I am here – I can feel its intensity focused on me.

*** ALTERNATE ENDING***

In desperation, I sit bolt upright in bed, my covers falling into my lap. I reach for the lamp on the nightstand beside my bed and fumble for the switch. After nearly knocking the lamp over, I push in the button and bright light floods the bedroom. My eyes sting and ache in the sudden light. Standing in the doorway, my uncle's mouth drops open in surprise. Fierce panic swells in my heart, giving me strength. I glare at him for a brief moment before opening my mouth and releasing a blood-curdling screech that would wake the dead. Now panic shows visible on his face and he takes two steps backwards. The sound of two doors being flung open echo down the long hallway. Heavy thuds of three pairs of feet approach my room. My uncle turns away from me and is confronted by my mother, my father and my aunt. “What the hell is going on?” My mother demands, pushing past him to come to my bedside. “Baby? What's wrong? Are you okay?” She is worried and her eyes search me for signs of injury. “Mommy!” I throw myself into her arms. “Please, Mommy! Please don't let him touch me again!” I burst into tears as she holds me tight and rocks me back and forth, safe in her protective arms. I am dimly aware of my father and my aunt confronting my uncle in angry tones. I sink into my mother's safety and am barely aware of the shouting in the hallway. I recognize the sound of a fist connecting with a face and a body hitting the wall but only from a distance. Mommy rocks me back to sleep, singing quietly and stroking my hair as my father and my aunt throw my uncle out of the house right then and there, in the middle of the night, no questions asked and no deliberations needed. I slip into pleasant dreams of treetops in summertime, knowing I am safe and loved forevermore.

And she lived happily ever after...