night terrors
October 12, 2004 10:27 AM

When I was a girl, there was this dream I had. I was standing, or walking, somewhere familiar. The where exactly always changed. But I was somewhere I knew well, and it was transformed into darkness and cold. Things whipped around me.

I would awake peacefully from this dream.

I would awake peacefully, but I would take the dream with me into the day. The worst were fall days, a common sort where I grew up, with rain and that otherworld darkness. Mid-day, cold, walking along covered walkways to classes, the night terror would jump back out at me. Almost paralysing. And the dream came whenever it liked, for years.

There was a boy. I met this boy, it wasn't a romance, just this boy. Something happened - I can't grasp exactly the memory of it - but something, and he was in the dream. He was light and warm and opened a door and there we were.

No more dream. Magic.

Until last night. The phone was ringing and the door was banging and the phone really was ringing the door really was banging and I was shaking and things were whipping around me it was cold it was dark it was windy.

I woke up this morning. Sleepier than usual, but peaceful enough. They were just trying to bring the luggage, but my ears passed these things to my sleeping self and through sleep to me waking. Every phone's ring tosses darkness and cold around me.