"What Will Catch The Nightmares?"

This is a one of many nightmares I have on a regular basis, in full color. Both My mother and father are dead, and my son is always nine or ten in my dreams/nightmares. I believe that is because he is now twenty and lives on his own. I miss him!

My mother and I had been calling my father, getting no answer we went to his home.  When I opened the door I saw part of his hand on the floor, and said, "oh my GOD, I knew he was dead!"  Then he somehow got up, and I saw that 1/2 of his toes, and fingers were missing.  There was blood all over the front of his shirt, and he and his place just looked like complete mayhem.  I just sat there and cried, asking why he didn't go to the Dr's at the V.A. or call us!  My mother was sitting in the chair beside him, and he asked, "what was your name again?"  He was just out of it; disoriented, and confused.  Then all of a sudden he was fine.  Where there were missing fingers before, were now cartoon characters images set on springs, the kind that dance back and forth..  My son, nine yrs. old was so impressed about one of the characters, which was Charlie Brown; my father's favorite.  He started telling us about a new pool game that he had bought for his t.v., and was showing Christopher how to play.  Some time passed, and my ex-boyfriend walks out, looking like death!  There were two other men that followed him that also looked like zombies. They sat there quietly for awhile, then my ex-boyfriend asked to speak with me privately.  We went into another room, where there was a woman curled up in a fetal position next to the wall.  I asked if that was the same woman he had told me about on the phone, and she was.  All of a sudden, I was walking home in the dark, and this woman that looked like she had been on a meth binge, was coming after me with a butcher knife.  Saying, "Don't think you can come between us, or take him back!"

As she was swinging the knife at me, and I'm screaming, trying to get out of the way of the blade!  I was saying, "No, No, I don't want him, I would only die for my son, no one else!"  Then for some reason, I was back at my father's apartment, and the woman had changed form, turning into a serpent, and one minute was trying to bite me, and the next acting like a puppy dog, licking my hand and being affectionate..  I picked the knife up off of the floor that she had come after me with earlier, grabbed the serpent's head, and started cut her throat.  My ex-boyfriend, and the two men warned me that I should not have killed her.  She didn't deserve to die!  I don't know where my father was at this point, and heard that my mother had gone insane, and had killed some people with a baseball bat!  One of the men changed form, and was just an upper torso with an elephant's trunk coming after me!  I locked myself in a bathroom with knife in hand, and one man had a claw hammer, and the other had a weapon but I don't know what it was.  All I knew was that I would be killed by one or both of these men!  Then I woke up with the worst headache I have had in a very long time!!!

 

Reviews

[facadeofshadows]

Wow, certainly a lot happened during this nightmare of yours. I really enjoyed the intensity, and some of your images were odd enough to show us a glimpse of that creative brain of yours. Isn't the mind a crazy little contraption?

I would suggest changing this from a narrative into a story, and, just as a dream usually is, it was a bit choppy. If you are going to make this into a short story, you are going to have to fill in the blanks somehow.

That isn't to say that leaving it as a narrative isn't just fine, I think I would have just preferred to have read it in a characterized form, with action and dialog, and a plot of some type. I'm sure with how twisted this dream was, you could come up with parts you could either add or cut out to turn it into a story.

Either way, the writing needs to be cleaned up just a bit:

"As she was swinging the knife at me, and I'm screaming, trying to get out of the way of the blade!" Watch your tenses here... it should read "...I screamed, trying..." Keep the whole story past tense.

Divide your paragraphs into a more logical flow. DESCRIBE each scene for me. You might know what your father's room looked like, but I don't. You know the motivation behind your characters in your dream � because you know your father and mother � but I don't. I need these details to make me feel a part of your dream.

Highly entertaining, though. Twisted!

[Angela]

This is an awesome story...so full of pain, suffering, and confusion. I too think that you should expand it into a short novelette of some sort. You have the gift of imagination and can make the reader see through your eyes..go with that

[Valorie J. Shearer]

No, I don't wake choking gasping for air but screaming, and crying I do wake up to all too often.. take care~~~

[Valentine]

This reminds me of the many nightmares I have had over the years since I was badly beaten by my ex and almost died from it..time passes but nightmares do not seem to fade away..At least you do not wake up screaming or gasping to get your breath because life is being chokes out of you..God bless..Valentine

[Steffi]

This had a tendency to be a little over dramatic towards the end. Unexpected yet expected ending. You could really fluff this out to really get a great stroy out of it.