A MIDWINTER NIGHT’S DREAM

Based on quite a lot of forgotten dreams...

Shirley knew she’d been dreaming when she woke up, sweating. Something had crawled unbidden into her mind and she was feeling as if her world was going to change in an normous way that she knew nothing about because, now that she was awake, the dream was completely gone.

“I was dreaming,” she whispered to David, who was dreaming.

And because he was dreaming her whisper found a wormhole into his head and just hovered around making the blond in there start giggling, which made his own lips twitch.

But that wasn’t the response Shirley wanted. She wanted his sympathy because, well, she’d been dreaming and she couldn’t remember a blind thing about it, and that seemed all wrong.

“Don’t you care?” she whispered, and the utter truth was even though he loved her a great deal more than he loved life itself, at that precise moment he didn’t care about anything other than the blond’s left breast and the way he was drawing, with all the skill at his command, a comical image of his own genitalia on it

“I wish a knew what it was that was so important,” breathed Shirley, “it got me so uptight and scared.”

David didn’t decide to ignore her, he just did. He had to. He’d packed up tattooing the blond and was pouring her a stiff gin and tonic in a pint jug while she took his pen and inks and drew a perfect circle with his navel at its centre looking like an inverted n****e. He offered her the drink at the precise moment that Shirley whispered the word scared.

“”Ooo, that looks good, but isn’t it a bit strong for an empty head like me?” asked the blond.

“I mean,” breathed Shirley, “I might have been dreaming that I was dying, and here you are snoring as if there’s not going to be any tomorrow!”

When she reached the whispered word snoring he’d had quite enough of unwanted interruptions. The blond was removing her bra, which somehow had been replaced, and he was standing at the bar pouring himself a nice long beer from a proper beer barrel that had somehow materialised out of thin air..

“David, I’m talking to you!” whispered Shirley, though in truth she was only whispering ridiculously quietly, “I’ve been scared stiff by a dream and I can’t remember the tiniest reason why I was so scared!”

David rolled to the edge of the bed and staggered off to the bathroom. “Need a pish…” he groaned on account of the fact that the nice long beer had gone straight to his bladder.

“What was I dreaming about?” whispered Shirley.

“The milkman, You’re always dreaming about the milkman,” replied David when he returned from the bathroom.

“We haven’t had a milkman for years, and you know that,” sighed Shirley, “and there was a time… he did have a nice bum, you know, but I was just a teenager back then and I hadn’t met you.”

“I never knew him, darling,”yawned David, “get back in bed, it’s early yet.”

“I’m in bed, silly!” replied Shirley, beginning to feel a little less like worrying about a forgotten dream.

“Oh, so you are, darling,” sighed David, and he lay down next to her, closing his eyes, “let me see, where was I…”

“When?” asked Shirley.

“Before I went to the loo.”

“How would you expect me to know. You were in bed, though, and I was trying to tell you about my dream.”

“What dream?”

“That was what I was saying. I got all worked up when I was asleep, by a dream I had, and when I woke up I couldn’t remember one thing about it, and I was scared.”

“We always forget dreams, silly!” There was a blond he wanted to get back to, and her gin and tonic was waiting for her, and he salivated at the prospect of what her gratitude might involve. What was her name? He couldn’t remember, but then, names in dreams don’t always matter, do they?

Shirley yawned and closed her eyes. “Now what was it?” she whispered.

“Blond. She was a blond and I was a tattoo artist,” sighed David.

“I think I’ll just get half an hour in before it’s time to get up,” murmured Shirley, “is that all rght with you?”

“Of course…” he burbled, and then, “where in the same of goodness has she got to? She was one pretty young lady…” But she was nowhere in sight, so he went to sleep instead of whatever else he had on his mind.

“Oh no,” sighed Shirley, “I remember now, quite clearly. I was in the forest being chased by a brown bear and he was about to catch me, and there he is, looking straight at me with evil yellow teeth and a hungry belly…”

David turned over, but the blond was gone. She’d vanished from his dream like blonds usually did.

Then Shirley’s complaint of yellow teeth and a hungry belly made its way past the absent blond.

“You’re right,” he said, “come on, let’s have an early breakfast, I’m peckish.”

And he climbed out of bed stripping off jis pyjamas and pulling on his trousers and a tee-shirt.

“What are you doing?” demanded Shirley, “it’s only three o'clock in the morning!”

“But you said you were hungry, darling,” he muttered.

“It was the bear that was hungry, not me!” she complained, “the bear I’d forgotten all about until you started talking about milkmen! Come on, get back to bed for goodness sake.”

“Oh dear,” he muttered, “but didn’t you wake me in the first place?”

“I’d had a nightmare and needed your help,” she told him.

“And I was tattooing a blond,” he admitted. “Come on, lovely, and if you go straight to sleep I’ll give you the treat of a lifetime when you wake up properly.”

“I can’t wait,” she sighed just as the biggest brown bear under the sun leapt out from behind the curtain and sunk its teeth deep into her fragile flesh. Her subsequent scream might have woken the dead, but David was already asleep.

© Peter Rogerson 18.08.23

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