romance vs. firearms

hallucinatory sleep paralysis comedy hour

I wrote this last week. I really like it even though it sounds like it was written by a frumpy old guy from the 19th century who smokes opium and wears spectacles. This is just a rough draft and the ending isn't really finished.

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I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine.

Every morning my clock radio blasts forth, at a jarring volume, the latest top forty hits mingled with static. Unless I happen to be feeling extremely motivated and energetic, I usually roll over and slap the 'snooze' button anywhere from one to fifteen times before finally arising. At some point during this cycle of falling asleep and waking up and falling asleep again, my friend comes to visit.

My friend never seems to be in a particularly good mood, but he's attached to me like a tumor. Some cosmic force has brought us together, and it seems that neither of us can will eachother away. He will not leave until he has taken hold of me and brought me to his own dimension.

Just this morning, my dream took the form of a videogame involving a well-built man swimming in a pool underground. Suddenly a giant fish rushed up from behind and ate the poor fellow, dying the water dreadfully red, at which point I opened my eyes and found myself back in my bed. I looked at the window, feeling as crisp and alert as the fresh snow glowing through the blinds.

My body felt a bit stiff, as though a heavy weight were pinning me down. I flipped over the covers to find my boyfriend laying on top of me. Naughty boy! He must've snuck into the house in the middle of the night, I thought. How unusual. His head was tilted downwards so that his hairline touched my ribs; I couldn't see his face. He silently lifted his brown arms from under the covers and grasped tightly on to mine, pinning me down.

We layed motionless like this for what felt like ages. As the seconds passed, I felt a deep rumbling, the source of which I could not discern; it grew louder and more intense as menacing vibrations shook my entire bedroom. I felt as though I was tied to train tracks and the train, conducted by some sadistic minion of Satan, was fast approaching.

Then at the 'click' of my clock radio, those terrible sensations abruptly ceased, and the nasally voice of James Blunt filled the room mid-song. All was calm. My eyes settled back on the crinkly black hair of my boyfriend, who was still frozen in the same position. Seconds passed, and an odd feeling came over me; I suspect similiar to the realization of accidentally drinking poisoned wine intended for someone else.

At this moment, I became fully aware that the man lying on top of me was not, in fact, my boyfriend, nor anyone even remotely human. Rather, it was my good friend paying me an especially sinister visit. My heartrate quickened to an unbearable pace and I felt bile rising up my esophagas. My eyes bulged in abject horror as my visitor slowly lifted his head, exposing a hole where his face should be. I was staring directly into, not a few inches away, a black hole, an invection in time and space; a doorway to a world filled to the brim not with physical, material objects, but with the worst of human emotions: all of the pain, depravity, sickness, death, and fear on earth, multiplied tenfold.

I couldn't scream or vocalize at all. I could move my limbs but they were in slow motion, while the beast atop my chest flailed his own arms around in an epileptic frenzy. The music on the radio sped up to sound like a Chipmunks song, then slowed to a snail's pace like Barry White possessed by the devil, before speeding up again-- and on and on, while the rumbling sensation made its comeback. I knew that all I could do was wait it out.

Suddenly, like the snap of a rubber band, my friend and all of his accompanying dreadfulness disappeared. I was fully awake in the same position, drenched in sweat. I threw the covers off and jumped to my feet in a panic, eager to separate myself from my bed, the gateway to all that is wretched.

Perhaps one day I'll lose the battle. My curiosity may even get the better of me, and, augmented by some foolish sense of courage, I shall embrace him, embrace the darkness; let him ravish me, and carry me off into his world where we'll be united in a marriage of utter perversity.

But as long as I retain my base survival instincts, I will not give in to him, for I can't shake the feeling that I may never wake up.

posted by Jerry McClelland @ 6:12 PM