Can't sleep, clowns will eat me.

Watching Toy Story 3 tonight I suddenly became suspicious of my Jason Voorhees doll and worried that he tries to stab all of my stuffed animals with his plastic machete during the night.

I’m going through a serious “teen screams” phase in my horror movie appetite.  Give me the beautiful teens on a vacation-gone-wrong movies; Turistas, The Ruins, Donkey Punch, Cold Prey.  Give me the slashers and stalkers killing off a group of witty teens save for a girl and maybe her boyfriend though he’ll most likely be wounded; Scream 1-3, Urban Legend, Halloween(s), Friday the 13th(s), Sorority Row, Happy Birthday to Me, Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine, Frontiers, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hitcher, Joy Ride, Wrong Turn.  Give me the sexy teens turning into creatures or witches or viruses killing off the unsuspecting group of friends or other unexplained supernatural teen slaughtering; The Craft, 5Girls, Jennifer’s Body, Cabin Fever, Ginger Snaps, Final Destination(s), Stay Alive.

I’m no stranger to the occasional survival horror dream.  Mostly in those dreams there are zombies involved and I’m trying to figure out a way to either kill them, or hide from them.  Once I dreamt that a zombified cat was trying to bite my legs.  The thing was wile has hell and I knew if it succeeded in biting me that I would turn into a zombie too.  So I fought like crazy because it was fast, really fast, and of all the zombies I’d battled taking on a zombie cat was the closest I’d come to being bitten.  I remember waking up and telling my husband about the dream, “Zombie cats are hard to kill!” I exclaimed, and ever since its become somewhat of a motto of mine.  I enjoy those horror-themed dreams.  What others call, “nightmares”, I call entertainment.  They are usually so vivid and exciting that years have passed and I can still recount a dozen or more of them.  But out of all these fantastic horrific dreams, one of them stands out from the rest, and it’s the one where we died.

The dream: Adam and I were on our way to work.  We’re public transit kind of people and in my dream it was no different.  We’d taken some form of transit to a friend’s house where we had to stop off to pick up a book or something we were borrowing.  Our friend lived in a basement and when we arrived and walked inside our friend was sitting at his kitchen table listening to a public announcement on the radio.  There was a look of horror on his face, eyes wide, mouth agape, complexion ash white.  He looks over at us and says, “It’s happening.  We’re being attacked, and it’s nuclear.  There isn’t much time.”  Adam and I decide not to stay in our friend’s basement, for whatever reason, and take off on foot, running for home.  I think of the cats, and how if there was a nuclear blast here I’d hoped they wouldn’t survive.  The terror that would come after such an event would surely be worse for them than dying.  I thought about all the miles we had to go to get home, and how I knew we weren’t going to make it.  Adam was faster than I and he was about four steps in front of me but it seemed like a hundred.  I thought about how much I loved him and that I was glad we were going to die together, because I wouldn’t have the strength to live without him by myself.  And I called out to him not to leave me behind, he briefly glanced back and said, “I would never leave you behind” and he reached his hand back for me to grasp and all the while we were running, running, running, and I reached forward and took his hand just as a white blinding light exploded in the sky and the entire world became a white flash of light, bathing everyone and everything in its void.

I woke up with a face wet with tears.  It’s my favorite dream, and whenever I think of it I feel a reaffirming sense of union.

The other night on our way to a dance club my friends and I were waiting for the elevator in an underground parking garage.  The occupants of the elevator descending could be heard from their place above, high screeching laughter and giggles filled the small lobby and Nat, Carl and I all exchanged smug glances.  As the elevator took its place on our floor and began to open, the three of us reflexively crammed behind a nearby column and sneakily peeked around it like a trio of Jim Henson goblins.  The girls tumbled forth from the elevator and one by one as they spied our sinister peering they began to squeal and scream and huddle into each other and one girl cried out, “rape whistle!” as they hurriedly pushed themselves as one entity through the door into the parking garage.  Carl, Nat and I laughed and laughed and laughed.  I think I’ve found a new calling in life.   

When I’m strolling the streets or having a polite exchange in a public forum I feel as though I am an honest representation of myself.  I’m respectful, flirtatious, witty, polite, and wish the general population no ill will.  I enjoy conversing with random strangers when the situation calls for it and often make eye contact with passerby and offer up a smile.  But when I’m at work and dealing with customers who enter the store, something changes.  I’m a facade.  My smiles are fake, my lilt is forced, every answer to every inane and repetitive question barely suppresses my frustration.  Some people don’t notice, or don’t care, but occasionally I get the person who looks me straight in the eye and I see that they are silently calling me out on my illusion.  I am transparent and the beast within stares out with fiery red eyes and a toothy grin.