Wed 11/7/2012
5:55 PMFalling...
I'm falling.
Falling as far as I could ever imagine.
I try to scream, but I realize that won't help me...nobody would hear me, anyway.
Initially, I thought I was falling forever, but I can see something below me. It looks almost like...a gigantic pillow?
But then, the pillow shifted, as if it were alive. What the heck...?
The soft, warm pillow starts to surround me as I fall towards it...
...SPLAT.
I'm awake.
...I think.
But I can't move. I feel completely paralyzed.
I instantly recognize the "pillow" from my dream. Both halves of it are firmly planted atop my chest. I've never seen anything like it.
...wait, it isn't just a pillow, is it...?
Oh, I see. There is a large, elderly woman sitting on me.
...WHAT?!
I try to struggle but not a single muscle moves. I don't just *feel* paralyzed...I really am completely paralyzed.
"Ah..."
The woman stirred, ever so slightly.
Hey, wait...I said something. I can talk!
"Um...excuse me?"
The pillow didn't move.
"Hellooooooo...hello?"
Nothing.
"HEY!"
Finally, the woman took some sort of notice. That was the good news. The bad news was that she responded by pushing herself down onto me. She seemed to double in weight. I tried to cry out, but for some reason no sound came out.
"Shut up!" the woman bellowed, in a deep, raspy voice that also seemed to add "I've been smoking for 70 years and I haven't croaked yet...if I'm not letting THAT bother me, than I'm certainly not going to let YOU bother me, either!"
The pain was excruciating...it was like my internal organs were trying to run somewhere, anywhere, to escape from the horror, but they were unable to liberate themselves from their impenetrable prison, also known as MY BODY.
Finally, after a few moments of that, she stopped pushing downward, and things went back once again from "excruciating" to "really uncomfortable."
I waited for a few minutes. Nothing changed. I figured I ought to try talking again, seeing as it was the only thing I could do.
"Um...excuse me?"
Of course, there was no response.
"Why are you sitting on me?"
The woman turned her head, clearly in response to the question I'd posed. Then, she slowly turned around. The motion was fluid, yet deliberate and forceful, as if she'd been sitting on the sort of turntable you'd find in a microwave.
"Because it's time to wake up! Say hello to the butterflies!"
The raspy invitation seemed to cue the disappearance of all light in the room. Then...they started appearing.
Blue, with pink spots.
Red stripes.
Rainbow-colored patterns.
Was I in some sort of video from the 70s? Trapped in a labyrinth of some sort?
As their wings fluttered, I thought I heard the flapping of very heavy wings, like that of an eagle. It was strange. And loud. I felt like I was going to get a headache.
The butterflies increased in number considerably, forming shapes... like clouds, made up of bursts of color that seemed to pulsate, as if rainbow-covered lightning was bottled up inside. Rainbow shapes followed, and their colors scrolled, distorted and flashed in as many ways as I could imagine. The wings got louder and louder as the colors became more vibrant. They were beginning to radiate light, just as the sun would, and the light started to brighten, until it was almost blinding...
And then, a voice louder than even the beating of the wings: "Annie?"
Huh?
The light became even brighter...now it actually was blinding me...
"Annie! What are you doing to your father?"
"It's time to wake up! Right, Mommy?"
"Oh, Annie..."
I realized that the sun's reflection was shining directly in my face. I covered my right eye and looked away with my left, only to discover my 4-year-old daughter perched atop my chest, and my wife standing over both of us. Annie was holding a piece of paper with butterflies drawn on it, in crayon, and wearing a smile almost as bright as the sun that had been burning my right eyeball a moment earlier.
"Unngh..."
I struggled to piece together what had just happened. Was there some sort of goblin in our midst? A devil? Was my child possessed? ...am I possessed?
Something tells me that I'll want to stay awake for a while, now...
