The Dream

Did I ever mention that I've had a regularly recurring nightmare since I was maybe 10, or so?



The dream always occurs in the attic of my "dream" home. This home appears in almost all my dreams. It's an amalgem of every place I've ever lived and every door to the outside opens to a different place that I've lived in my life. The damn house is so static that I can draw a floor plan of it, even though the room sizes are always disjointed and way the hell out of scale. I can even tell you what junk is stored in the basement! Anyway, the nightmare always happens up in the attic. My "dream" home is haunted, you see. When you go up the pull-down stair to the unfinished (no floor, just joists) attic there waits for me the most horrific figure I've ever come across. I'll describe it to you, but trust me: no description matches the terror it wakes in me. The damn thing shoots me straight up in bed in a cold sweat, every damn time! I'm pretty sure this nightmare was why I wet the bed into my early teens . . . but I digress! :-)



In the nightmare I'm only 10 years old and I always know she's there before I pull down the stairs. I know, but I need to go up to the attic anyway. Never any reason, I just need to go. She turns towards me the moment my head pokes up between the joists. She is mostly a black lace gown, with no feet. She hovers above the joists, soundlessly floating to wherever she wants to go, though She spends most of her time staring out the window at the eave end of the attic. She wears long black gloves that cover her lower arms and she always points right at me as soon as she sees me, and begins to float toward me. She wears a sheer, black, veil that covers the lower half of her face - or where her face would be if she had one. That's the most disturbing part: she is totally featureless. Her face is smooth as an egg, no nose, no eyes, nor ears and her skin is the dread white of maggots. She is old. Her hair is white, flecked with dark grey, and I know that she is the ghost of a grandmother who decades ago murdered her grandchildren in my "dream" home. This attic is Her's alone and She is always furious at my intrusion. She launches towards me with a scream that makes no sound and I fall backwards down the attic steps in terror. That's when I always wake up, sweating like mad, my heart pounding at a few hundred thousand beats per minute.



Intersting? Maybe, but I'm sure you're wondering why I bring it up now. Well, because I had the nightmare again last night of course! Only -this time- things were different. For starters, I was an adult . . . I've never been an adult in the "dream" house before. Never. It was my house but I was renovating it in a most dramatic fashion. What had always been a dark, dingy, cobbling together of disparate dwellings, had become an architectural marvel. Most walls had been replaced with glass so the entire place was brilliantly lit. The rickety doors to different places had all been removed and now the openings showed scenes of beaches, forests and mountains. The ceilings had all been torn down so the entire home had a beautiful vaulted ceiling. The only remnant of the old attic, where She lived, was a few feet of remaining platform surrounding the pull-down stairs. Because everything else was open and lit, I could see She was still there, hovering over the attic stairs, clinging to the last little bit of perch She still had. I looked up at Her and I was suddenly furious. I was thoroughly pissed off that this bitch had been terrifying me for nearly 30 years. I raced forward and yanked down the steps, charging up onto the platform. She turned toward me and pointed, just like always, but this time I wasn't scared, it just pissed me off even more. Instead of Her charging me, it was my turn. I dove at Her, intending to tackle the bitch and beat the crap out of Her. Of course, She was a ghost and I went right through Her. The force of me hitting the platform was too much for the precarious structure and it gave way, sending us both plummeting to the carpeted floor below. Something odd happened then (as if this whole thing ain't weird enough, eh?) Once the ghost was taken out of the attic, she wasn't a ghost anymore. She was human again: a remarkably pretty 50-something woman with salt and pepper hair, wearing a plain white nightgown that hung to her knees. She sat on the floor, looking up at me with wide eyes and I knew, with absolute certainty, that this woman was terrified of me. Me, and the light that poured in through all the windows. She began to cry and I felt sorry for her. I took her by the hand and took her to all the windows, showing her the wonderful views outside and even opening them, so she could feel the breeze on her face. After she had seen all the different views, she gave me a small smile, then reached out to touch my face. I was still mildly frightened of her but I didn't want to scare her, as she'd always scared me, so I returned the smile. Once I did, her smile grew and she leaned in and kissed me. A long, soft, and not entirely grandmotherly kiss. She held it for a moment, then let me go and walked out the door that led to the beach, smiling as she went.



Then I woke up.



Odd, no? I don't know why the dream changed, but somehow, I know I'll never have that nightmare again. The ghost is gone from my attic and my dreams have been renovated.



That makes me strangely happy.



Just figured I'd share that with ya.



Later!