smoking

There were no words in this dream, just a blur of repeated and out-of-sequence images.

First I was pool-side at some apartment complex with some a married couple of English professors I used to have. They were telling me how hard it is to make ends meet on their salaries. The woman professor was holding her nearly one-year-old baby with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. I remember being shocked to see her smoking. She handed me her baby and offered me a cigarette.

Next I was in the pool trying to teach the baby how to swim. He had one of those big pink elephant floaty devices and was smiling and laughing.

The next image I remember was being on the phone in their kitchen, fighting long distance with my dad about my laziness and refusal to help him with my schizophrenic younger brother. I was so angry I was in tears. The English professor couple both patted me on the back and offered to make me dinner.

"Here, this will make you feel better," the woman said as she handed me her baby again. He was giggling. I remember feeling really annoyed by that.

She lit up a cigarette and started cooking some pasta. I saw her flick her ash into the boiling water while we were talking. She didn't act like it was out of the ordinary.

I sat shocked to see the brainy academics complaining about money and smoking cigarettes. I woke up scratching my head.

I've been having alot of war dreams lately and strangely, they all involve my dad. Last night's wasn't quite a war dream...guerrilla warfare maybe. I was hanging out with my dad in the front yard of some house I've never seen when a bunch of men in black masks run up and start to attack the other people in the yard.

My dad grabs my hand and we run to the back yard. It was so scary and felt so real. I was crying and my dad was telling me to be quiet so I don't give up our location. He pointed to a tree and mouthed the words "climb it." So I climbed that tree faster than I've climbed a tree before and he followed.

We sat in the tree and gave eachother shrugs and sad looks until I woke up.

nooooooooo!!

I was a vampire. I was consumed with guilty feelings for eating innocent people, including friends and family members. But I was hungry. I killed mercilessly when the opportunity arose because I had to. Then I felt horrible about it later and hid. I was a loner. But I still had a boyfriend and spent a lot of time at his house. Since we never really go out during the day, it was convenient, so we spent most of our time hibernating in the dark of our bedrooms. I hissed at him when he tried to remove the sheet of duct tape I had placed over his bedroom window. His roommate was really worried about him. He eyed me suspiciously every time I came over.

Once he asked, "Why do you guys always eat dinner at midnight?" looking straight at me.

Then during one of my hunts for blood, I was caught--by Carey, my boyfriend's roommate. He saw me in an alley between some stores on 9th St. on a loud Saturday night, violently sucking the blood from the neck of an intoxicated homeless man. When I saw Carey, looking silently at me in disgust, I dropped the corpse on the ground and wiped the blood off my mouth. I was frightened. I hissed at him and covered my face. I shouted at him not to look at me. He just stood there. I pleaded with him not to tell Brice. Then he started laughing.

He threw me against the brick side of a building and bellowed, "I knew you were after Brice's blood! I knew you were the same thing I am--well, I'm not going to let you kill him!" I was dumbfounded.

"What do you mean, what you are?"

He said, "I shouldn't need to tell you that all vampires can sense their own kind. Stay there."

Then he walked to the end of the alley, into the street and was gone for what seemed half an hour. He came back with a drunk girl in heels clinging to his shoulder. They were laughing like they'd just seen the funniest thing. She was scantily clad and had bleach blonde hair with dark roots. He walked toward me with her and clasped her by the shoulders. "Watch this," he mouthed. Then he bared his fangs and sunk them into her neck. Her expression changed in a split second from drunk and happy to terrified and shocked. She screamed and tried to run but he threw her down and devoured the artery in her neck, sucking every last drop of blood from her. He picked up her corpse and that of the homeless man and threw them effortlessly into a dumpster.

From then on, it was a constant battle between Carey and I for Brice's company. We both suspected the other of wanting to drink his blood and tried to protect him from the other. One night in a park I offered him a victim and tried to make peace with him, suggesting that we make a pact to protect Brice from other vampires and ourselves, and simply leave him when the urge came to feed. He angrily sucked all the blood from the girl and said "no deal." Then we proceeded to fist fight, throwing eachother threw the air at great distances.

"Bitch, when I catch you, I'm going to chain you to this tree and you'll explode when the sun comes up!" I remember him shouting.

Then the end of the nightmare came...I was in Brice's room making out with him. Carey barged in and said "Dude, let's go to the game store NOW." Brice laughed and said, "Um, I'm kinda busy." Carey stormed over and yelled "NO! You have to stay away from her! She's trying to kill you!" Then he grabbed me by the hair and threw me off of him. I slapped him across the face and we started fighting. Brice was shouting and trying to separate us, but we had become so angry we turned into vampires and started levitating. Brice was freaked out. He tried to run out of his room but Carey grabbed him. "Me or her, dude. You have to decide who dies."

Brice smacked at his arms and yelled "Get off me, I don't want to see either of you again! You can both die, you freaks!" I lunged at him, told him I loved him, then sunk my fangs into his neck. "NOOOOO!!! I wanted to turn him into a vampire!" Carey screamed. He ran over and finished the last of the blood, then cut his wrist and brought it to Brice's mouth.

I screamed "NooooooO!! What have I done?!" I told Carey he'd burn for turning Brice into one of the cursed. Then I kicked him in the head and ran out of the room, intent on being outside when the sun rose and killing myself.


hahahhahaahaaaaaaa

I'd kill the bastard.

One of the most horrifying nightmares I've ever had.

I was pregnant. And I didn't even notice it until Brice pointed it out. He did it so non-chalantly. "Look, you're three months pregnant." I look down. My stomach is swollen and I'm in such disbelief that I know it could only be a nightmare. But it seems so realistic. I scream. "AAAAAARHHHHGGGGG!!"

Crying. Worrying. Pacing around wondering what I'm going to do. Everyone else acting normal, like it's not a big deal I have a fucking human in my stomach. My life is over. I wonder how to kill it. How to kill myself. I run to Brice and scream, "I have to do something!" he pats me on the back and tells me there's nothing we can do about it, that we'll just have to be parents. "Too late for an abortion," he says, "we'll just keep it at my parents house while we're at work and school." Nooooooooo!!

I slap his chest and cry and scream as he tries to calm me down. I want to die. I can't handle a kid. I can barely take care of myself. I get angry that Brice and Ali and Carrie continue to sit in the dining room and play cards as I cry and grow more and more suicidal. I tell them I'm leaving to die somewhere. They say, "No, don't do that. You'll kill that baby. Sit down and chill out." No one looks up from the card game.

I was never so relieved to wake up as I was that morning.