Strange Doings In The Dark
4 AM and the world was snoring, or at least our two Boston Terriers were. A voice pierced the calm of night.
"MAMA! I HAD A BAD DREAM!"
Though she normally gets out of bed at the speed of sludge, Regina was up and running before the boy finished his sentence, as though she'd been launched by tightly-coiled springs. My own response in these situations tends to be slower and fuzzier. I gradually gained some waking consciousness, and staggered toward Elijah's room.
Regina was busy talking him down.
"What happened?" I said.
"I dreamed that Shaq ate us!" Elijah said.
He wasn't referring to the itinerant sheriff-pimp NBA All-Timer. Our dog Shaq is old, blind, deaf, hobbled, and flatulent. We have to add hot water to his food so he can gum it down. Eating us isn't on his agenda.
"Hardly likely," I said.
"And then he ate himself!"
"Even less likely."
"I'm scared!"
"It'll be OK."
"Can I sleep with you?"
"You know the answer to that."
Many people let their children into bed with them after a bad dream. We aren't those people. Once you open the sheets to visitors, the odds of having a 12-year-old co-sleeper are reasonably high. Horror stories of the family bed abound, and we want our damn privacy at bedtime. We help our kid through the rough dreams, but then he stays in his own room. The night belongs to us.
Regina plugged in a string of accent lights that hang around the boy's dresser, and we went back to bed, unaware that the night's terrors had just begun.
Regina tossed around like a restless-leg-syndrome sufferer who'd just consumed a pot of instant coffee. After a while, I got up and went into the living room. The couch was cold and covered in crumbs, but at least it wasn't bouncing with pre-dawn anxiety. I'd just begun to head into my own dream state when the 5 AM gloaming was once again torn asunder by a hideous shriek.
"AIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!"
By the time I could disentangle myself from the blankets that smelled of dog, Regina had already been in the boy's room for two minutes. This time, apparently, he'd seen the shadow of a human head, which was "smoking a water pipe." Also there were several aliens on the floor, looking at his toys. They had blue swirly eyes, and they wouldn't let him scream. When he finally did, they disappeared. That vision, combined with his earlier dream, made me wonder if he'd accidentally eaten one of the Reefer's Peanut Butter Cups that I'm keeping in the freezer for purposes of future recreation.
I unplugged the lights, and Regina asked if I wouldn't mind sleeping on the bottom bunk, to make him feel more secure. It would be my third bed in the last hour. At this point, since we had to all wake up in two hours anyway, it didn't matter anymore. I went to get Elijah some water, and I lay down.
There I tossed for a while, listening to Genghis, Elijah's holiday hamster, whiz around in his wheel.
Thwuck thwuck thwuck thwuck, he went.
Everything felt sideways, off, wrong. I began to suspect that we'd slightly undercooked the chicken we'd eaten for dinner, and now the bird was taking its revenge on us. The family's collective consciousness had been spiked with mild evil.
Then I was screaming at my wife, because without my consent, she'd purchased three more hamsters, a female and two babies.
"HOW MUCH DID THEY COST?" I asked.
"Only six hundred dollars," she said.
Thwuck thwuck thwuck thwuck
"SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS! WE CAN'T AFFORD THAT! AND WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE WE FEED THEM?"
"They can eat some of our food. They're so cute!"
Thwuck thwuck thwuck thwuck
"THEY'RE NOT CUTE! THEY'RE HORRIBLE! GODDAMN HAMSTERS!"
And then Regina was drawing open the curtains, Genghis was asleep alone in his cage, and Elijah was hopping out of bed, already fully dressed. Regina looked at me, tacitly acknowledging that we'd survived a strange night. I extended my middle finger at her. She flipped me a bird right back. All was right in our family.
Comments
I loved this entry. Our rule is no kids in bed with us, but we allow them to sleep on our floor. I think calming has to do with proximity...
Now, onto hamsters. My sister Lea had two hamsters growing up. She might have named them. But she eventually forgot to feed them. Ew. When she realized she'd forgotten, well, one had been dead for a while... and the one who survived did so by eating what was left of his dead friend. This is why I've vowed there will be no birds, no bunnies, no guinea pigs, or cute potbelly pigs, and no goddamn chickens. You know people in Austin keep designer chickens as pets? Pink ones. Called "Silkies." Unreal. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Stephanie Klein | January 27, 2010 8:21 PM