Asleep at Uncle Tommy's

A Story by Vernam

A boy relives a terrible day in his dreams.

I was being chased. I was scared. The big dogs were howling.

To my room, my safest place I ran.

My room was bathed in warm sunlight, painting everything in pastels. My bears, my plastic flute, my soft bed. In the corner, sat the policeman. He smiled at me, a warm smile that told me that he understood what I was feeling, but didn't really. I liked him.

"It's all going to be alright," he said, flashing that smile again. He held out a soda can to me. I took it and drank, but it was all wrong and salty. I realized that my tears were pouring like a river into the beverage.

The doorbell rings.

"I've got to be going," said the policeman, "take care of yourself."

And he's gone.

I sit down on my bed and wonder when I'll be able to play those new video games my daddy had bought for me just that afternoon. They looked like a lot of fun, and one of them could have two people playing at once, so me and daddy could play with each other. It was going to be fun.

I hear a crash, and I'm suddenly seized by a great fear. But I dare not run. I moved silently, to my secret place. Trying to keep the stairs from creaking. Now, I'm in my attic, and the light doesn't work.

There are a box of old toys, and a popcorn machine popping away.

"Shhhh," I said to the popcorn machine.

I crawled along the floor, like GI Joe, until I came to the place where daddy accidentally poked his foot through the ceiling.

Rain was falling through the ceiling which suddenly wasn't there. I could hear it pattering on the sidewalks.

Looking through the whole, I saw Batman and Spider-man standing over my mommy and my daddy. They were holding little guns.

I decided that mommy and daddy had been playing with snakes. The snakes were all tangled up in their arms and legs. They had always told me not to play with wild animals, and look what they were doing now.

Batman was asking mommy if she had any kids. He didn't sound very nice. I thought about shouting and waving to Batman to get him to stop yelling at mommy. But I didn't. I just sat there very still, listening to the rain and distant sirens.

Daddy had gotten the snakes off of him. He grabbed Batman's neck from behind. Spider-man shot him. Bang Bang. Just like the video games. They looked like fun.

Then, Batman and Spider-man started doing the laundry. Mommy was crying. They poured bleach all over the placed, completely missing the clothes. I could have done much better than them. I wondered why mommy was crying. She was always trying to get me to do her laundry.

The policeman was sitting beside me again. "It's okay to cry."

The Batmobile must have run out of gas. Again, they were doing a sloppy job, and were getting gasoline everywhere.

Uncle Tommy was there too, and he was crying and holding me so tight it almost hurt.

Then, it got really hot inside the attic, and I started coughing and mommy was screaming, and a big fireman was throwing me over his shoulder, and I kept on telling him that I didn't want to leave mommy, but he just kept on walking.

I don't know why they bring firetrucks in the rain. They should just let the angels put out the fire.