My twenty-seventh birthday is in 10 days, and I am not afraid to admit that I slept with the lights on for part of the night last night. I stayed up late creating another sharpie marker pop-art drawing of my cat Nemo, and then took a pain-killer for the annoying sharp pinch in my left shoulder that I got at work last week thanks to picking up a chunky toddler. I had to go to workman’s comp urgent care and everything, which was less than desirable. But I digress. So after completing my masterpiece while watching Mansfield Park, TrueBlood, and the 9th episode of Bored to Death, I decided to hit the hay. Sleeping has been rather uncomfortable since my injury last Wednesday. I’m a side sleeper, and I toss and turn alot. Getting settled just wasn’t happening. I finally dozed off only to awaken an hour later covered in sweat, terrified that Mike Tyson and Howie (that football guy) were driving a purple Camaro up the side of a building to get me and my dad. Fortunately in the dream my dad and I had killer kung-fu skills and were able to leap off a window sill and run down the side of the building without falling down a dozen stories to our death. Mike Tyson’s car flew in the air inches over my head as I leaned backward in slow-motion-matrix style fashion. And then bam! I’m in my room wondering where Tyson and Howie are, and thinking how pretty awesome my Matrix skills were. I get up for some water, return to bed, and assure myself all is well and drift off to sleep again. This time I woke up 40 minutes later. In this dream I am hiding in a dark office building, watching hundreds of people on the ground below. It has a distinct noir feeling to it. Then I am transported to the ground. The hundreds of people are caving in around me. I grab the hand of my high school friend Joni from ASB, that I haven’t seen in 10 years (in real life). We grab a pastry at a coffee cart as we flee the scene and bound up industrial stairs back to the dark office room in which this began. Now there are more refuged people there. In the dream I knew them, but now I can’t remember who they were. Some have guns. There are some wooden crates people are hiding behind. We’re all hiding from the same person, and all trying to rescue the same baby. Quite strange, I know. Shush. The person we’re hiding from is outside the door. The lights flicker and we are in complete darkness. Someone is grabbing me. They’re all in black with a mask on their face. And then guess what? I’m AWAKE again! This time more scared than I was of Tyson. I’m starting to think WTF?! I want to sleep. I get up for a few minutes. Open the door to my room, in case someone does actually come get me someone will be able to hear me scream. Then I climb back into bed. Lights out. This time I’m back in the same place, but it’s a different segment of the dream. All I can remember is running. And running. And we’re losing. Whatever it is we are trying to do. I wake up panting. And that’s when I hear the thunder. It’s 3 in the morning. Joey (my dog) has just heard the thunder too. He’s in my parent’s room and protesting to being woken up by the monstrous booms. I get up and turn the light on closest to my door. Hoping it’s enough to chase the nightmares away. I think I can sleep with the light on; though I don’t remember the last time I did. I lay on my right side for a few minutes, trying to get back to sleep. It’s 4am now and my body is wide awake from terror and thunder. My mom pops her head in my room, wanting to know why my light is on. I tell her I was having nightmares so I decided to turn it on. She tells me Joey is scared of the thunder, can he come and sleep with me. Of course he can. She puts him on my bed and he lays down on/next to me trying to melt his body into mine. I feel safer with him here. Mike Tyson will have to go through him before he gets to me. Not that Joey would be much of a deterrent, but still, I feel safer with him there. You can turn the light off I tell my mom as she leaves, I have Joey now. And that’s how we slept the remainder of the night. Melted into each other. Afraid of what was lurking in the night — whether it be thunder or Mike Tyson.
and filling in the blanks.
