Tag Archives: nightmare

INSOMNIA

If you’ve ever suffered from insomnia even for a short time you will understand how I feel. And why what happened on that particular night transpired. I have to say that I have lived my entire life sleep-deprived. My mother told me long ago when I was a baby and a young child, she had difficulty getting me to go to bed, fall asleep and stay asleep the entire night.

Nightmare Monster

Nightmare Monster

She told me sometimes it took her an hour to get me to go to bed and stay there. That I would get up many times and ask for water, or tell her I was hungry or that I had to go to the bathroom. Sometimes even after my parents and older siblings were all fast asleep, she would be awakened by me standing next to her bed and saying,” I can’t fall asleep or I had a terrible nightmare. Or she would get up to go to the bathroom sometime after midnight and find me lying on the floor eyes wide open. She would say,” Ellie why are you out of bed?” You need to go back to your room and go to sleep you have to go to school in the morning and I have to go to work. Please, please go back to your room and get some sleep.”

My father worked the night shift and I rarely saw him. I wouldn’t dare go into my parent’s room when he was home at night. He would yell, “what is that kid doing in our room again, can’t you make her stay in her bed?”  My mother said, “I did, she has trouble sleeping and she becomes frightened when she is lying awake in the dark. She has a vivid imagination.

“Put her to bed and make her stay there or I’ll lock her in there and make her sorry she doesn’t stay in her room at night.”

My father had a short fuse and I had no doubt that he would make me sorry for not staying in bed.

“Come on Ellie let’s go back to your room and I will sit with you until you fall asleep.” And as tired as she must have been she would come and sit by my bed and sing quietly next to me until I drifted off to sleep. She called it the Land of Nod.

” The Land of Nod is the reason that I didn’t want to fall asleep because I knew only too well that I didn’t want to go there again. Because it is a place where nightmares begin.

But the horrors that take place there don’t always end when you open up your eyes. Most people don’t hear the voices that I hear when I return from the Land of Nod. I can still see the monsters that dwell there and remember the horrific things they told me.

The Land of Nod is not the peaceful place you might imagine it to be. It is a land of tormented exile rather than a place of peaceful sleep. Some lost souls become vanquished to this place of eternal nightmares. They cannot get out and return to their waking life. They are possessed by the evil that dwells there.

One night I lay down on my bed and the next thing I know I‘m climbing up a rusty metal winding staircase on the side of an ancient Victorian house. As I climb upward toward the roof, I can’t see any end to the ladder. The roof seems to move farther and farther away instead of closer. It begins to rain and become extremely windy. The rain is hitting me hard. It feels like bullets are pelleting me. The staircase becomes extremely slippery. It begins to sway from the left to the right and back again. It bangs against the side of the old house over and over. I fight my way up the stairs to the roof.

Finally. I reach the roof and as I look up, I see what I can only describe as a face full of hatred and disgust. There is steam rising from its body. I almost lose my grip on the ladder in an effort to remove myself from the creature’s presence. He thrust out his scaled and crusty claw to grab me. My terror at the thought of this monster touching me is greater than my fear of falling from the roof. I let go and just as I was about to slam to the ground and no doubt die, I wake up with a start in a cold and clammy sweat.

I reluctantly open my eyes one at a time. Terrified at where I might be. I realize I’m in my room. I’m about to crawl out of my bed when I hear my closet door creaking open. Before my eyes, I see the scaley face and toothy grin of the creature that has been waiting for me on the roof. The last thing I remember seeing is the awful vision of the creature licking his lips in anticipation of devouring me.

I close my eyes tightly and hold my breath. Fearing what terrible event might take place. I wait for what seems an eternity. Finally, I open my eyes and stare across the room and I see nothing except that my closet door is wide open. There are huge reptilian footprints on the carpet. I let out a scream so loud that both my father and mother come running into my room.

“Dear god Helen what is wrong with this child? Why can’t she go to sleep and stay asleep until morning. Why is she always waking up every night screaming like a banshee?”

“I don’t know Henry. She’s a child. Children have highly active imaginations. They have nightmares. What do you expect me to do? I give her a warm bath before bed. I give her warm milk to help her sleep. I sit with her for hours at night. Sometimes she seems fine when I first put her to bed. And then in about fifteen or twenty minutes, she starts twitching and moaning. And then before you know it, she starts screaming. It’s very hard to wake her up then. I have to really shake her hard. It’s like the nightmares have a tight grip on her. It’s scary. Sometimes I’m afraid that I won’t be able to wake her up and she is a prisoner to these horrible nightmares she has.”

“Well Helen, you have got to do something. How can I go to work and do my job when I never get a decent night’s sleep? You are going to have to take her to the doctors and see if there is anything they can do. I’m exhausted.”

“Henry we’re all exhausted. I’ll see if the pediatrician can offer some kind of solution or if he can refer me to a therapist of some kind who can help her.”

“Do it tomorrow, Helen, I’m at the end of my rope. Do you understand?”

“Yes Henry, I understand. Tomorrow.”

The next day my mother says to me, “Ellie I made an appointment for you to go to the doctor.”

“No, I don’t want to go to the doctor, I hate when she gives me shots. I don’t want to, no.”

“Ellie, I’m sorry but you are going. He won’t be giving you any shots. This is a different kind of doctor. He is the kind of doctor that just talks to you to see if anything is troubling you or making you upset. I want you to talk to him about the problems you have sleeping and the nightmares you have all the time. He is just going to listen to you that’s all. And then he will talk to you and me and tell us what he thinks is causing your sleep problems and try to make it better. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but I can’t tell him about the Land of Nod.”

“The Land of Nod?”

“Yes, you told me that I go to the Land of Nod when I go to sleep. It is terrible there. There are horrible monsters that live there. And they try to kill me and eat me. Sometimes they come back with me when I wake up to my room and they try to kill me. They hide in my closet.”

“Ellie, the Land of Nod isn’t a place. It’s just an expression for going to sleep. Anything that you see in your dreams is just your imagination at work. We all have nightmares sometimes if we go to sleep and we are overtired or had a bad day or something upsetting happens before we go to bed. I’m sure the doctor will tell you the same. How about you go and get dressed and wash your face. Then come into the kitchen and I’ll make you some hot oatmeal. I know you love that.”

“Ok mom, I’ll get dressed and come eat breakfast.”

After breakfast, I went into the kitchen and my mother said “Ellie please go brush your teeth and then put on your jacket. I don’t want to be late.”

“Ok mom, I’ll be right back.”

My mother didn’t talk much on the ride to the doctor’s office. I kept my fingers crossed and hope the doctor wouldn’t give me a needle. Cause I hate needles.

“Ellie, we’re almost there. Don’t worry she’s just going to talk to you. All you have to do is answer his questions truthfully.”

“Ok mom, I will.”

A few minutes later we got to the doctor’s office and we were told to have a seat until we were called in to talk to the doctors. It seemed like we sat there forever. And then a pretty lady came out and said Ellie can you come with me?’

My mom nodded her head and said, “go on Ellie everything is going to be alright, I promise.”

The pretty lady said, “here, we are please just have a seat and Dr. Robbins will be right in.”

I sat there and sat there for a long, long time. And then a short chubby old man came in. He was wearing his going to church clothes. He had a long black and grey beard. He said.” hello, miss Elie. I’m Doctor Robbins and we are just going to have a little talk about the trouble you have sleeping. Can you tell me about that?”

I looked at him and he sat and waited for me to say something. I couldn’t decide if I should tell him about the Land of Nod or not. But my mother said that he was going to help me sleep better and I was really tired. “Ok, I’m afraid to fall asleep at night because of what happens after I fall asleep. I’m afraid to go to the Land of Nod, and what happens there and because sometimes the monsters are going to hurt me. And sometimes when I wake up in my bed the monsters are in my room.”

“The Land of Nod? What is that, Ellie?”

“Oh, that’s what my mom calls the place you go when you fall asleep.”

“What do you see there Ellie? “

“There are monsters, they are really scary they usually have been long, sharp teeth and long claws. Sometimes they can fly. They tell me that they are going to kill me or my mom and dad.”

“Oh, that sounds really scary. What happens when you wake up Ellie?”

“Mostly I wake up in my bed because my mom comes in and shakes me cause I was crying or screaming in my sleep and wake my dad up and he gets really mad at me when I do that. Cause he has to go to work and he’s always tired. I don’t want to wake him up so I try to keep myself awake all night so I won’t wake up screaming and getting my dad mad.”

“Does anything else happen after you wake up?”
I look at the doctor really hard because I wanted to be sure I should tell him about the monsters coming back from the Land of Nod with me. His face looks like he really wants me to tell him the truth. “Yes, sometimes the monsters come back with me to my room sometimes they hide under the bed, and sometimes they are hiding in my closet to kill me or my mom and dad.”

“Ellie you must be really scared when you see that. Did you ever tell your Mom and Dad that?”

“I did tell my mom once but she didn’t believe me so I don’t tell her anymore. She told me it was just a nightmare and not real. But it is, I can feel the monster’s breath on my face and it smells like burning. Sometimes it spits at me and I have to go in and wash my face because it burns. I really scream when that happens and that’s when I wake my mom and dad up.”

“Alright Ellie, I think I understand now. I’m going to go talk to your mom and then she will be able to take you home. Just sit here quietly for a few minutes.

The doctor asks his assistant to call Ellie’s mother into his office. She arrived looking exhausted with dark circles under her eyes and a worried expression on her face.”

“Well doctor, what do you think is going on with Ellie?”

“Mrs. Lipton what is happening to Ellie and it’s not unusual for this to happen to children in her developmental stage is that she is having Night Terrors. Well, the best description of a Night Terror is that is a vivid dream. Sometimes it can be a result of some trauma, but most often it is an inherited trait that might run in your family. Did you and anyone in your family have night terrors that you know of Mrs. Lipton?”

“Not in my family as far as I know of doctor. But I don’t know about my husband’s family. Is there anything you can tell me to do because my husband isn’t getting enough sleep because of being woken up at night.

“Well yes, a few things making sure she is relaxed and sleepy when she goes to bed. Perhaps giving her a hot bath might help. Try and reassure her that she just needs to quiet herself and think of things that make her happy. Reassure her that she is loved. And perhaps sit by her bed until she falls asleep. Ultimately, she will outgrow this behavior as she gets older. About 40 percent of children have these night terrors. Do not wake her up when she is having one. Sometimes children can act out if that happens. It is not uncommon for children to sleepwalk while they are having a night terror.”

“Really, oh dear. That’s is scary.”

“As I said as her nervous system becomes fully developed these dreams will resolve themselves. Try to have a ritual before she retires for the night. Taking a bath, having some warm milk. Saying her prayers if you do that. And finally kissing her good night and she closes her eyes and waiting for her to fall asleep. If this doesn’t work, we will consider sending her to a sleep lab. Call me and let me know how she is doing, alright?

“Yes, I understand Doctor thanks for your help. I hope it works. I will keep in touch.”

“Alright my nurse will be bringing Ellie out to the waiting room now. Goodbye.”

Ellie followed the nurse out to the waiting room. She saw her mom sitting there and said, “can we go now. I’m really tired?”

“Yes let’s go home and see what we can have for lunch shall we. What would you like Ellie?”

“Oh, vegetable soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. That’s my favorite.”

“That’s what it will be then. As they drove towards home. Ellie’s mother could see her eyes kept closing and then she saw Ellie was asleep. Ellie’s mom thought, oh what a relief. She continued on her way home without any incident and suddenly she heard a weird growling noise from the back seat. She thought it was the car backfiring at first and then she realized it was a low growling. So, she looked in the rear-view mirror and she glanced at Ellie who was now wide awake and she had her mouth wide opened in a silent scream. The growling noise got louder and she saw something so terrifying that her mind wanted to block it out. But it couldn’t there was a creature with a long snout full of huge fangs and it was above Ellie’s head looking as if it was about to bite off Ellie’s head.

Helen thought she must be losing her mind. How could she be seeing this living nightmare? She kept staring at it, the huge orange, bulging eyes, the horns that look like they could kill someone with ease. And then it open’s its mouth wide and spewed forth the most acrid, decaying smell she had ever experienced. And that is when Helen was awakened by a loud noise. Her car had just slammed into the median strip in the middle of the highway. Ellen’s eyes opened and she realized she had fallen to sleep at the wheel and crashed her car. At that moment she remembered from a long-buried memory that she had experienced night terrors as a child and Ellie must have inherited it from her. And then the lights went out when she lost consciousness. The next thing she was aware of was when she woke up in an ambulance with her daughter lying beside her on a gurney. She was banged up and bruised but alive.

Helen and Ellie heard a calming voice saying, “you are going to be alright. We are on our way to the emergency room. Everything is going to be alright. Try to rest now.”

Helen looked at Ellie looked at one another tears ran down their cheeks. Knowing that they would never have a peaceful sleep again.

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DORA’S DAY GOES FROM BAD TO WORSE

Dora wakes up slowly. She lifts her head, and it feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. She looks from left to right.  All she sees is what looks like the morning sky, and it is somewhat overcast. She attempts to rise. And she realizes two things at once.  First, she isn’t in her bedroom and, hence, not in her bed. And secondly, she isn’t alone. “What the hell is going on? Whose idea of a joke is this, goddammit.”

Nest

by Rauschenberg-Pixabay

Dora isn’t a morning person. It’s the main reason she never married. She can’t bear the idea of waking up next to someone every morning and having to make small talk. She isn’t cheerful, or it’s a new beginning kind of girl. She’s more of a get the hell out of my face kind of girl.

And here she is, wherever the hell that is? Outside looking at the great beyond. She finally gets her sea legs and stands up gingerly. It almost feels like she is on a ship out at sea. And a storm is brewing. There is a slight swaying beneath her feet. She looks down. Unbelievably, she sees nothing, just more sky. “What the fuck is going on?” Dora curses like a sailor on leave when she’s frightened or angry or happy, or drunk, or just because she damn well feels like it, damn it. She was born and raised in South Philly, and she doesn’t give a good goddamn what anyone thinks about her.

But right now, she fears the worst: that she has finally gone off her rocker, lost her marbles, or lived in a crazy town. Take your pick.

She twists her head and then looks down again. Her head spins. Momentarily, she feels as if she might faint or stroke out. She hasn’t decided which she prefers. At her feet are two objects that, for all the world, look like giant eggs. They look like they weigh a good twenty pounds each.  They are pale green with blue speckles. “Sweet muscular Jesus, I must have taken some bad assed drugs last night. This is the worst hallucination I have ever had. “Wake up, wake up, you dumb shit.”

Dora squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head vigorously, painfully. Trying to wake up from this nightmare or bad trip or whatever the fuck it is. She has had enough. And then suddenly, she hears what can only be described as what sounds like the scream of someone being torn limb from limb. She fears that she is the one screaming.

She pries and opens her eyes with her fingertips. Because she can’t manage to make them open any other way, momentarily, she is relieved because she doesn’t see any blood spurting out of her shoulder where her arm used to reside. She touches the top of her head, and it appears to be intact. She looks down and sees that both feet are attached to both legs. “What the flying fuck is going on here?”

And that is when she sees what is poking out of the egg-shaped object. The things that nightmares are made of. Without warning, a sound so loud, so horrific that she could not even believe it existed.  Not in the world she previously lived in or any other world man or woman has imagined. She covers her ears. She starts saying the Hail Mary, words she hasn’t uttered since she attended Catholic Grade School. God, anyone, somebody, please help me. Wake me up, help me.

She looks down; surely, her eyes must be deceiving her. But at her feet and rising out of the “egg” is what looks like a nightmarish bird. A bird from the Third Circle of Hell, a bird without feathers. A bird exposed to radiation. But, then “the bird” opens its monstrous beak, it displays a mouth full of teeth. Teeth that perhaps once belonged to a Saber Tooth Tiger. And then, just as she feels, she might lose her mind.  The other egg starts cracking, and a beak starts to emerge. The screaming begins anew. It is so loud that she thinks her head might explode. That is the moment she realizes that the ungodly bellowing is not coming from the horrific babies. But something is flying above her and baring down on what she now realizes is some kind of nest from hell.

The babies are screaming in unison. Surely, Dora’s eardrums will burst soon, and she will no longer have to endure the sound for another moment. The thing that was flying above her is now circling for a landing on the freaking nest. At that moment, a thought pops into her mind. She tries to push it away. But she can’t, it remains. The thought is I’m the worm that these ungodly creatures will be given for their first meal.

The closer the gargantuan bird came, the more eminent the end of Dora’s life became. Her life flashes before her eyes. Just like you always hear happens to people when their lives are about to end, as they jump off the roof, or the bridge, or drown in a polluted lake. She sees her long-dead mother’s face looking down at her baby self. She sees her first day in school with Sister John Michael telling her to sit down and shut up. She sees herself playing with her friends in the backyard. The vision begins to fast forward, and her final thought is, “What the fuck is happening?” Gimme another chance, please. I can do better. And then the lights go out.

The light is bright, unbearably bright. There is a low humming noise. A sense of floating through the air. Dora feels a sense of release as if she was bound and now, she is free. She hopes she is in heaven or some version of heaven and not hell. Even though in her previous life she long ago gave up the notion of the hereafter. She hears a distant voice that she thinks must be God or Satan. “Open your eyes.”

Cora is afraid to open her eyes to eternity. “You can do it, Cora; open your eyes.” Cora opens her eyes. The bright light is still above her. She hears a high-pitched crying. She thinks, on no, I’m still in the nightmare. She forces her eyes open. “Try to sit up a little, Cora, and you can hold your baby. You had a rough time of it. But you are both fine, Congratulations.

Cora looks around, is speechless for a moment, and then shrilly says,” What the hell is this?”

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STARRY, STARRY NIGHT- A MEMOIR BY SUSAN A. CULVER

I hear my mother’s voice calling me, “Susan, Susan, it’s time to come in now.” I don’t want to go home yet. I gaze up at the inky blue star-lit sky. I imagine that I’m living on one of those far away stars looking down at my younger self. I see myself standing there in the moonlight with a thousand stars above me. My whole life is ahead of me. The lightning bugs are twinkling all around me. I hear the voices of my neighborhood friends laughing at a distance.  I hear my best friend calling out my name. “Susie, Susie, your mom is calling you. You better go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Photo by Robert Culver

I close my eyes and imagine myself on that faraway star lightyears away. And when I wake up in the morning, I don’t recognize the room I’m in. It smells differently. The room is painted in a weird color that I don’t recognize. My sister’s bed isn’t on the other side of the room.

I throw my legs over the side of the bed and get up and walk over to the window. I look outside. And where there should be the Lombardi’s house there’s nothing but a barren field. I shove the window open and, in the distance, I hear the sound of bells ringing. I say out loud, “that must be the church bells ringing. But where did the Lombardi’s house go? Where is Mr. Lombardi’s police car? Wait, where is the church? I rub my eyes over and over. I convince myself I must be dreaming. This can’t be real. I creep down the steps as quietly as I can. I’m terrified of what I might find. What if my mother and my father, aren’t there? What then? Will I be alone in this strange world?

When I get down to the bottom step, I peep around the wall and look into the kitchen. I don’t see my mother. Where is she? Where’s my mother? Oh, maybe she’s at Mass? Or maybe she’s in her room getting dressed? “Mom, mom, are you down here?” I call out. She doesn’t answer me. No one does. Then I notice that the kitchen doesn’t look the same. The table is smaller and only has four chairs instead of six.

The light over the table looks like an upside-down umbrella instead of the wagon wheel my father recently put up. There is an eerie glow to the room.

The table isn’t set. My mother always sets the table before she goes to church in the morning. The coffee pot isn’t percolating. I can’t remember any day in my whole life when the coffee pot wasn’t on when I got up in the morning. My parents drink coffee all day, every day.

I slowly creep over to the front window in the kitchen. I’m afraid of what I’ll find or what I won’t find. I look across the street. I stare outside onto Fellowship Road that is right in front of our house. There’s a road there but it’s a dirt road. And I don’t see Mrs. McFarland’s house or her garden. In fact, there aren’t any houses. There are instead miles and miles of fields.

I’m beginning to feel panicky. I break out into a sweat. I yell at the top of my voice, “Mom, Dad, where are you?” No answer. In fact, my voice echoes throughout the house. The house feels empty. As if there is no one else anywhere. I frantically run from one room to the next. My mother’s room has a bed and a dresser. None of her personal things are there. Her rosary isn’t draped across her mirror. The rocking chair that she sits in every day to say the rosary isn’t there. The bedspread I crochet for her isn’t lying at the end of her bed. It’s gone.

I run over and look under the bed for it.  The bedspread isn’t there either. I practically rip off my mother’s closet door in my haste to see if my mother’s clothes are in there. Only empty hangers remain.  I look in my father’s small closet. It is empty, as well. Save for his favorite slippers at the back of his closet. I feel a tear run down my cheek soon, followed by countless more. Where are my father and mother, where are they? Has someone stolen my parents? I hear my voice inside my head, screaming,” I want my mother and father, bring them back, bring them back.” I’m crying hard; I can hardly catch my breath.

I finally manage to breath normally and stop crying. I run out of my parent’s bedroom to the bathroom. I can’t open the door immediately it’s stuck. I yank it as hard as I can. It slams into to me, and bangs into my forehead. I feel a knot rising up. No one is in there, and there aren’t any towels hanging on the racks. My mother’s mirror isn’t sitting on top of the toilet tank, where she always puts it. I look at myself in the mirror. I appear the same except for the tear-streaked cheeks and the knot on my forehead. I touch it gingerly. The pain is real enough.

I don’t know what to do or where to go. And then I remember the phone. I can call one of my older sisters. And they will explain it all to me. Maybe my parents are at one of their houses. I run back into the kitchen and dial my sister’s phone number. The phone rings and rings but no one answers. I call my other sister. No answer. I dial 911. No answer. I call my best friend, no answer. I drop the phone and slide down onto the floor and start sobbing in earnest.

Then I decide to go down into the basement maybe they are all hiding down there for some reason and forgot to tell me. Maybe there’s a hurricane coming and all the phone lines came down. That’s happened before. I practically fly down the steps. I yell out, “ Daddy, Mom, where are you? Are you down here?” No one answers me.

I run over to the bilco doors and push as hard as I can. They fly open and slam down on either side. I step outside into what should be my backyard. The yard I have played softball and pitched tents and played hide and seek every summer of my life.

The Willow tree is there and the benches my father built around the massive tree trunk. This is the place where I seek solace and read all the long summer days away. I wrap my arms around its massive base.

I’m so happy to see something that I love so dearly is still here. The tree that offers me a retreat.When I need to be alone and shade from the sultry and humid Summer days. As I sit there, I look around and see nothing else that is familiar. Not the parking lot of the church, no sign of the pump house in the parking lot that I had climbed up so often and then slid down nearly breaking my neck every time.

I don’t see Popular Avenue that should sit right behind the church parking lot. Nothing, just an empty dirt road with no cars, no kids on bikes riding up and down the street, no kids on roller skates. Nothing, no one just me sitting here hugging my tree.

And then I think, where are the birds? Why aren’t the birds flying in the sky and nesting in my tree? How will I go on without all the birds that I love so well? I close my eyes tightly. And wait and wait and wait.

And the next thing I’m aware of is a bright light shining in my eyes. I can see nothing else. Just the unbearably bright light that blocks out everything else. I try to close my eyes but can’t. I try to raise my arms so I can touch my eyelids and see what is holding them open so wide. I can’t. It feels like something is restraining my arms. I begin to feel panicked. I try to yell out, but nothing comes out of my mouth. I’m screaming as loud as I can inside my head. But I hear only silence. I feel a tear make its lonely way down my cheek. What fresh hell is this? Have I been abducted by aliens? Are they going to experiment on me or cut me up in little pieces?

“Doctor, doctor I think she’s waking up. She’s crying. Untie her, take the light out her eyes.”

“Susan, this is Doctor Buckley, can you hear me? Can you see me?

My throat feels dry, I try to swallow, but I can’t there’s something lodged in my throat. I try to cough. But I can’t.

“Doctor, she’s trying to cough. Can’t you remove the tubes?”

“Yes, Susan, this is going to hurt a little. Take a deep, deep breath, and I’m going to pull the tubes out of your throat.”

Tubes out of my throat. What’s happening? I take a deep breath and feel a terrible sense that something big is pulled from deep in my throat. I cough and it’s out. I begin to see something besides the blinding light. My mother, my mother’s face, is there in front of me. I feel more tears running down my face. I say in a voice that I hardly recognize, “Mom, Mommy, where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you and Daddy. There was no one in the house or outside. I called everyone on the phone, and no one answered. Where were you? Why did you leave me all alone?”

“Susan, we didn’t leave you alone. We have been here all along. Do you remember what happened at all?”

“Yes, I remember I woke up and no one was home. Our house looked all different and so did our neighborhood. I couldn’t find anyone. Not even birds, they had all  disappeared.”

“Susan two days ago when you were out playing hid and seek, I called you to come in and you must have fallen and hit your head. The doctor thinks you might have had a seizure. Remember you had them before when you were in church taking Holy Communion? But don’t worry you are going to be perfectly fine. And Susan, we would never leave you alone. We will always be here for you for however long you need us. Until you are grown up.”

I look at my mother’s sweet face and at my father’s face that for once had a smile on it from ear to ear. And I started crying again, only this time it was from happiness. My father said, “Oh no, here comes the waterworks again.”

My mother said, “Oh Harry don’t be such a grouch.”

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Dora’s Day Goes From Bad to Worse

By Susan A. Culver

Dora wakes up slowly. She lifts her head, it feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. She looks from left to right. All she sees is what looks like the morning sky, it is somewhat overcast. She attempts to rise. And she realizes two things at once. First, she isn’t in her bedroom and hence not in her bed. And secondly, she isn’t alone. “What the hell is going on? Whose idea of a joke is this, goddammit.”

Dora isn’t a morning person. It’s the main reason she never married. She can’t bear the idea of waking up next to someone every morning and having to make small talk. She isn’t a cheerful or it’s a new beginning kind of girl. She’s more of a get the hell out of my face kind of girl.

And here she is, wherever the hell that is? Outside looking at the great beyond. She finally gets her sea legs and stands up gingerly. It almost feels like she is on a ship out at sea. And a storm is brewing. There is a slight swaying beneath her feet. She looks down. Unbelievably, she sees nothing, just more sky. “What the fuck is going on?” Dora curses like a sailor on leave when she’s frightened or angry or happy, or drunk, or just because she damn well feels like it, damn it. She was born and raised in South Philly, and she doesn’t give a good god damn what anyone thinks about her.

But right now, she fears the worse that she has finally gone off her rocker, lost her marbles, was living in crazy town. Take your pick.
She twists her head and then looks down again. Her head spins. Momentarily, she feels as if she might faint or stroke out. She hasn’t decided which she prefers. At her feet are two objects that for all the world look like giant eggs. They look like they weigh a good twenty pounds each. They are pale green with blue speckles. “Sweet muscular Jesus, I must have taken some bad-assed drugs last night. This is the worse hallucination I have ever had. “Wake up, wake up, you dumb shit.”

Dora squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head vigorously, painfully. Trying to wake up from this nightmare or bad trip or whatever the fuck it is. She has had enough. And then suddenly, she hears what can only be described as what sounds like the scream of someone being torn limb from limb. She fears that she is the one screaming.
She pries open her eyes with her fingertips. Because she can’t manage to make them open any other way. Momentarily, she is relieved because she doesn’t see any blood spurting out of her shoulder where her arm used to reside. She touches the top of her head and it appears to be intact. She looks down and both feet are attached to both legs. “What the flying fuck is going on here?”

And that is when she sees what is poking out of the egg-shaped object. The things that nightmares are made of. And without warning a sound so loud, so horrific that she can not even believe it exists. Not in the world she previously lived in or any other world man or woman has imagined. She covers her ears. She starts saying the Hail Mary, words she hasn’t uttered since she attended Catholic Grade School. God, anyone, somebody please help me. Wake me up, help me.

She looks down, surely her eyes must be deceiving her. But at her feet and rising out of the “egg” is what looks like a nightmarish bird. A bird from the Third Circle of Hell, a bird without feathers. A bird exposed to radiation. But, then “the bird” opens its monstrous beak, it displays a mouth full of teeth.

Teeth that perhaps once belonged to a Saber Tooth Tiger. And then just as she feels she might lose her mind. The other egg starts cracking and a beak starts to emerge. The screaming begins anew. It is so loud, she thinks her head might explode. That is the moment she realizes that the ungodly bellowing is coming not from the horrific babies. But something that is flying above her and baring down on what she now realizes is some kind of nest from hell.

The babies are screaming in unison. Surely, Dora’s eardrums will burst soon, and she will no longer have to endure the sound for another moment. The thing that was flying above her is now circling for a landing on the freaking nest. At that moment a thought pops into her mind. She tries to push it away. But she can’t, it remains. The thought is I’m the worm that these ungodly creatures are going to be given for their first meal.

The closer the gargantuan bird comes; the end of Dora’s life is becoming more imminent. Her life flashes before her eyes. Just like you always hear happens to people when their lives are about to end, as they jump off the roof, or the bridge or drown in a polluted lake. She sees her long-dead mother’s face looking down at her baby self. She sees her first day in school with Sister John Michael telling her to sit down and shut up. She sees herself playing with her friends in the backyard. The vision begins to fast forward, and her final thought is “What the fuck is happening?” Gimme another chance, please I can do better. And then the lights go out.

The light is bright, unbearably bright. There is a low humming noise. A sense of floating through the air. Dora feels a sense of release as if she was bound and now, she is free. She hopes she is in heaven or some version of heaven and not hell. Even though in her previous life she long ago gave up the notion of the hereafter. She hears a distant voice that she thinks must be God or Satan. “Open your eyes.”

Cora is afraid to open her eyes to eternity. “You can do it, Dora, open your eyes”. Cora opens her eyes. The bright light is still above her. She hears a high-pitched crying. She thinks, on no, I’m still in the nightmare. She forces her eyes open. “Try to sit up a little, Cora, and you can hold your baby. You had a rough time of it. But you are both fine, Congratulations.
Cora looks around and is speechless for a moment and then says shrilly,” What the flying fuck is this?”