I’m running as quickly as I can, my bare feet flashing out in front of me and slapping the hard white sand. As I run, I notice the vast emptiness of this place and it terrifies me. How am I to get to safety? Where can I go? I notice a black curved line in the distance and change direction, surging toward it as fast as my small body can take me. He is still behind me. I don’t see him so much as I get a sense of him back there, his presence a taint on my very being. A flash of his face overwhelms me with fear and I try to run faster. It’s like a camel’s face, but blood red and with dripping yellow fangs. His ears are longer than a camel’s, and he suddenly calls in some way, raising his head briefly to the sky. What does that mean? Are others coming? He’s too fast. I come to the black line and see that it is a road. No. It isn’t a road, it is a frozen black river in the middle of this desert. I get the sense that he can’t cross this. If I cross I’ll be safe. I leap almost recklessly down the bank and skid across the ice toward the safety of the other side. My left foot thumps onto the soft sand along the far bank. Just as it lands, he’s there looming over my right shoulder, his fangs sinking into my flesh. My voice joins his as we scream to the sky.
I wake up panting. I’m terrified and I want my mother, so I get out of bed and venture into the darkness. The big circular rug is there in the next room and I lay down on it, gathering the nerve to enter my parents’ bedroom. Will they be angry with me for waking them? I play with one of the orange tassels on the rug then get up, walking into their room. There is no darkness greater or deeper than the darkness of their room as they sleep. I lose my nerve. I find my way to their closet and climb inside, losing myself in the safety of the confined space and the scent of shoes. I drift off to sleep, safe from the creature.
two in the morning –
a nightmare beast comes calling
in a young boy’s dream