Once upon a time, when Papa was just a little boy,
whenever he had a truly severe nightmare (which was about every night), he would set out from his warm and safe bed, to make the perilous journey across the very dark world of the house at night, to the most comforting place he knew. But to get to his Mama, he had to run a gauntlet of creeping horror, and when you do not wish to be seen by things hiding in the dark, you have to keep yourself low to the ground, like a soldier advancing through a dangerous jungle, you don't scramble from Point A all the way over to Point Z; you have to wait at Point C, keeping your breathing under control, and then pause between Points C and D, listening, listening, listening...
...because you are not alone. That is so obvious when you are five years old. Sure, everyone tells you something different -- it's okay! there are no such things as monsters! you're safe! don't worry! and so many other calming phrases that you know are worthless, because for whatever reason your parents lose the ability to see the truth -- and in the dark is so much more a richer environment than the daytime. Things dance. Lights go on and off in rooms around the corner. Voices, distant, murmur. There is laughter, just out of hearing.One night five-year-old Dougie woke up and he didn't know what had awakened him. Was it a dream? A nightmare? Nightmares were something he knew a lot about. His mind clicked furiously in the daytime, imagining this and that, but at night his imagination became supercharged with twin cams and a nitro gizmo injected off to the side. Now what had brought his eyes open tonight, in the middle of the darkest part of the night when everything was quiet?Click. Tap. Tap click tap.Dougie knew there was someone standing just outside his window. He could see their shape through the curtains. And they were tapping, trying to take the glass out of the window.He lay frozen in bed, hardly daring to move. This was not like his usual nightmares, because he was fairly certain he was awake. And when he woke from the usual nightmares he would crawl from his room to Mama's and kneel by her side of the bed, whispering: "Mama! Mama!" keep his voice as soft as possible, because if he woke Dada there would be a torrent of shouting and Dougie would be sent back to bed, shaking, terrified, and very uncomforted.Mama was a much deeper sleeper than Dada, but when you were kneeling on one side of a king-sized bed and your Mama lay between you and the ogre who would yell, you had just a little bit of leeway (just a little bit, if Mama took too long to wake, there would be...consequences."Mama!" Dougie would whisper-shriek, trembling, because he was right there, by the side of the bed and under the bed was just inches away, and under the bed was one of the scariest places, this was an obvious truth that no amount of preaching or lecturing could dispel, because things were under the bed."Mama!" Dougie whisper-shrieked, inches away from Mama's sleeping face.Mama's eyes pop suddenly open and she starts, shaking the whole bed, and makes a loud inhalation of breath that might possibly wake up Pammy and Donna in the next room over. "What? What! What's wrong!" Mama says, way too loud, her eyes rolling about."Shhhhh!" Dougie urges. "I had a bad dream."And of course Mama makes room for Dougie to cuddle in, and almost instantly he is sleeping peacefully, and everything is right in the world.That's the usual thing. But tonight, in the middle of the dark, with a creepy clicking outside his bedroom window, it is different. This isn't a bad dream. He has to do something. How come he can't move? He seems paralyzed, like he couldn't move even if he wanted to, even if it were morning.Now he sees movement outside the curtains, and there is no time for paralysis, and he edges off the side of the bed, untucking the covers as he goes and he drops to the carpet. The under the bed is there, of course, right there, and Dougie pauses to consider it. He is not even at Point A. They live in the desert, and there are rattlesnakes in Quartz Hill, and somehow they often find their way into homes, and they like to come out at night, they like to play especially with five-year-old boys lying on the floor.Tap. Tap.But the bad man at the window takes precedence over snakes under the bed. He begins his long crawl, and going past the partially opened closet is always a bad time, because in the daytime it is one of the best places in the house, full of most of his toys (excluding the ones he is crawling over right now) but at night it is another one of those places, and as always, the closet door seemed to be opening (often he had to pause and watch the door, for sometimes up to five minutes, and although it always seemed to be opening, it never seemed to get open), and tonight he only gave it a glance and continued on past the bathroom and you just knew horrible things lurked their at night (sometimes the toilet bubbled, and Dougie tried not to imagine what was coming up out of the water after its long and squishy trip through all the pipes). He crawled past the bathroom and his sister's room and made the quick turn int othe hall. He had to pause here, because there was a crossfire danger, as in front of him his parents' room faced the dining room, and there was a step-down into the dining room, and as he crawled past that vast opening into his parents room, something might POUNCE upon him, he knew it was possible, no matter how many times his parents assured him there was nothing there, waiting, in the dark.For some reason, the master bedroom seemed the darkest room in the house. Mama favored heavy crushed-velvet curtains, and his parents didn't use a night light, so it was dark. But Dougie crawled as fast as he could past the dining room into his parents' room and paused at the foot of the bed. Usually, he would head to the left side of the bed, where Mama slept.But tonight was not about comfort. At five years of age Dougie knew the difference between comfort and protection.He crawled to the right side of the bed. Dimly, he could just make out Dada's face. Dougie had never waked Dada before, he knew it was a very dangerous thing to do. He only paused a moment before shaking Dada's shoulder."Dada!" he said, hardly whispering.Dada's eyes popped open. He stared at Dougie. He didn't make any noise the way Mama did. He didn't jump. Without moving he said: "What's wrong?""A man is outside my window," Dougie told him.Dada got out of bed and walked quiet from the room. Dougie followed him. Everything scary seemed to withdraw into their hidden places as Dada walked past. Dougie wasn't even afraid any more.Dada marched right to Dougie's window and he paused only a second, listening, then he opened the curtains.Nothing stood brazenly outside, blatant, arrogant. Nothing stared in the window and pierced straight into Dougie's wide, watching, startled eyes.On that side of the house was an open field and it was about fifty yards until the next house, and in the bright moonlight you could see that there was nothing out there. Nothing moved in the night."You must have had a bad dream," Dada said, and he had Dougie get back in bed. Then he did a surprising thing before he returned to his own bed. He gave his son a kiss good-night.Dougie never knew if it was a nightmare, or his imagination, or if someone really did stand outside the window trying to open it. But he fell asleep immediately.All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
important - FIGHT THE FLU WITH HERBS - important
