My eyes popped open in predawn darkness to the worst situation which could befall an elderly man in his bed. Somehow someone had left the windows unlocked, and curtains flapped in the stultifying breeze. Two to three men entered quietly, one hiding beside the chest of drawers, another behind a side table and possibly crouching beside the luggage which still sat in the middle of the floor after our trip to New York.
I saw men because women have enough sense to be asleep at four o’clock in the morning instead of breaking into a stranger’s house to watch them stare back at them hoping that they in actuality were a dream.
We had made it quite clear to everyone we knew that we kept no large money amounts of money hidden in a closet and we owned no valuable antiques. Both sets of our parents always bought cheap furniture and appliances so we were stuck with really cheap garbage in our house.
Several voices in my head were giving advice all at the same time which was very confusing and gives me a headache, taking the crisis to a whole different level. I nudged my wife to tell her there were hulking, menacing men lurking in the shadows of the bedroom.
“Shut the hell up before you wake up the dogs. Go to sleep, dammit!”
Another voice told me this was the same dream I’d been having all my life. All I had to do was pull the imaginary AK47 from beneath my bed and blow their brains out. I scoffed at the idea because those imaginary bullets would tear holes in my very real old furniture and I didn’t have the money to replace them. I didn’t even have money in my dreams.
Another voice told me to get up and turn on the light. Once I realized the hulking shapes were just shadows of furniture and luggage I would feel better and go right back to sleep. I hate this voice. It was always chirpy and thought it had so much common sense. For one thing, if I were having a bad dream then scientifically I could not move my legs to get out of bed to turn on the lights. During deep sleep all limbs are temporarily paralyzed to keep you from hurting yourself. Even if I did commandeer every ounce of willpower I had and was able to force my body into action I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. What good was ending the nightmare if I had to spend the rest of the night thinking about it?
The loudest voice was the craziest one of all, and I tried to ignore it as much as possible.
“Wouldn’t a nice tall cone of frozen custard taste good right now?” I told you. This voice was eccentricity personified. “We could just put our lips on the top of it and just barely suck on it and the frosty creaminess would fly down on our throats.” The frozen custard stand was open only a few months a year, and I was lucky to get one or two a season.
“I’ve got evil shadows in my bedroom!” I wanted to shout at this crazy voice but knew my vocal chords were frozen too, just like the delicious custard.
“The evil shadows in your room aren’t real. I’m not real either, but I’m much nicer to think about.”
By this time I had succumbed to the frozen custard fantasy and immersed myself into licking the frozen delight before it melted in the summer heat. Don’t let any drip on my shirt, or Mother will get mad at me. Oh hell, this is a dream, I don’t care if Mother gets mad at me or not.