Thanks to Nerilicon, CagleCartoons.com, Mexico City
As if someone had
clapped their hands an inch above my face, I wake up fast, my back arched,
muscles gripped.
I’m alone in a
small single bed, tucked in tight by a dark brown hessian blanket. The room is
sparse and tiny, dusty bare floorboards leading to a door not two foot from the
end of the bed.
My first waking
breath brings the stench of death. Gripped by terror, with no idea where I am,
I feel a primal need to locate the Snapper; make sure she’s safe.
Trouble is, I
can’t get out of bed. This heavy hairy blanket is holding me down as if it has
a life of its own.
Taking a deep
breath I rip the bedclothes off me and in one movement rise from the bed and
open the door.
A vile cocktail of
putrid smells engulfs me. There’s a short landing leading to a staircase, all
dusty bare floorboards, ingrained with faded white paint stains.
So profound is my
fear my legs fail to move. I call out for help.
Louder, again.
Help!
Again. Somebody!
Help me, please!
I wake up.
Phew. That was a
nasty one. Hope I don’t go back to that little number.
Generally I dream
three about times a night, often revisiting the last dream after waking, which
can be lovely, but after a nightmare like that, well, I hope it’s nearly dawn.
01:32.
Bugger.
Going off to the
loo I find the house still awake. The Snapper’s watching TV, Lady is getting
belly tickles beside her. All is well with the world.
“Blimey love,
nasty nightmare!”
“Oh you poor
thing!”
In much the same
way that suppressed memories of childhood horrors filter up through more
confident adult psyches, I’ve noticed over the years that nightmares visit me
when my brain feels safe, and we’d just returned from a three day holiday that
was several days too short.
“It’s probably my
brain dumping pooh on me because it thinks I’m still on holiday.”
Back to bed,
straight to sleep.
I’m standing in
the rambling overgrown garden of a huge white house. Although it’s in the
countryside, it resembles a dilapidated and shabby version of Washington DC’s
own, marbled by swathes of dark green ivy.
On the gravel
driveway is parked an old Bedford van, the like which of I haven’t seen since
Ford introduced the Transit.
The huge black
front door of the house opens and a couple of 1960s Disney/Enid Blyton
criminals run out carrying sacks, jump into the van, and drive off at high
speed, rear wheels spinning a cloud of grit and gravel.
Walking into the house
I realise it’s my home. Everywhere I look there are people lounging on sofas
and chairs but I don’t know any of them, so I go to my office, only to find the
shelves broken: books, files and scraps of paper strewn as vomit.
Rage builds within
me, fuelled by the discovery that my office chair has been dismantled. The
Snapper walks in and we have a blazing row, which even though I know I’m
dreaming, I watch with interest, as it’s something we’re not very good at in
normal waking hours.
She turns to me.
“Where’s the van?”
“It’s gone.”
“Gone? But don’t
you see, those blokes put Lady in a sack and now they’ve scarpered!”
Before I have the
time to ask her why she’s talking like somebody from 1957, I’m dashing out the
door, only to find myself back in my Townland.
Running up the
road stark bollock naked, I’m chasing the van, my exposed flesh feeling the
heat of a strong sun under a ridiculously blue Irish sky, not particularly
giving a damn about the neighbours who stand outside their houses, jaws
dropping in unison, tutting and nodding and muttering didn’t they always say
how that English fella was a quare one and just look at him now.
Having failed to
outrun an internal combustion engine, I return home to find Kevin Healy has
popped in for a cuppa. For the second time that night I think lucidly while
dreaming, wondering how strange this is, given that I rarely see my friend. He
plays no further part in my dreamly proceedings
The Snapper holds
a perfect white geranium in a pot up to my chin.
“It’s dying!” she
wails. “They’ve taken the dog and now perfect white geranium is DYING!”
She screams the
last word so loudly it wakes me up.
06:58. Thank god.
Slipping into trackies and a T-shirt I take Lady out for her morning peeper.
Had enough of nightmares now. As the dog eats grass I chuckle, realising why my
mind is so addled.
After my last
Craft of Writing Course at The Galway Arts Centre, some of my students asked if
I’d run a follow-up course, so I’ll be teaching them the art of editing,
through the writing of a short story each. I always write alongside my
students, so to reacquaint myself with this most demanding of forms, I’ve been
revisiting the short stories of Bukowski, O’Connor and Macken, a cocktail of
talent and darkness well able to mess up any mind.
(By the way, if
you’d like to have fun while improving your writing skills, I’m running another
Craft of Writing Course at The Galway Arts Centre, from Wednesday 1st October
for 8 weeks, 7:30 - 9:00pm. €110/100 concessions. Numbers are limited, so
please contact The Galway Arts Centre now to book your place: Phone:
091-565886; email: info@galwayartscentre.ie)
Doggie’s done her
doings and I’m back in bed by 07:20. It’s Sunday, so I’ll read a while, doze
and -
My brother’s arm
is reaching out of the helicopter. He’s yelling at me to grab his hand, but I
can’t leave. The world is filled with noise, dust and turbulence and ... and
here we go once more.
Freud shmoyed: eat
your heart out, Sigmund.
It has been a long
night.
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