NIGHTMARE
 |
Nightmare.
Frightening! Most times after being awake for a while the sleeper concludes
their dream was unreal. They have nothing to worry about. A peaceful
sleep returns. When the same dream returns again and again, even if it has
slight differences, dismissing the harrowing memory is very difficult. With the
repetition comes tension, tension so great that one feels like a rubber band
stretched to the point that it will snap. Logical explanations wilt in the face
of a burning, glaring fear. Help is need. Telling someone else about having
nightmare assaults leaves one open to being seen as crazy.
In
my novel, Baggage
burdens., Jill continually dreams about an accusing male voice.
Jill’s
body sinks into the comfort of the chesterfield. She dozes. An hour slips by
like it’s five minutes. In her sleep she kicks out and knocks the silverware
box to the floor. The crash jars Jill. After determining what the noise was all
about, Jill gives in to the chesterfield’s comfort and warmth. Her rest is a
short-lived pleasure.
“You phony. Phony! Phony!” The deep male voice scratches Jill’s
contentment like a cat’s claws raking her bare arm. “Liar! Liar! Liar!”
Jill
cries out. “Nooooooo.”
“Can’t
marry me until you know more about me hey? When did Joseph
gain that vital knowledge about you before he agreed to this marriage?”
“He
thinks he knows enough,” whimpers Jill.
“And you know better. How dare you attempt
to build a marriage without love? You know why you’re doing this? To hide from
Dave.”
“Joseph
loves me.”
“That means this marriage has only a 50
percent chance of success.”
“He’s
happy. What more do you want?”
“How about you choosing to make him happy?”
“I
am making him happy. I agreed to a
church wedding.”
“Good compromise, but does that mean you’ll
be listening to God like he does?"
“Enough
already! Get out of my head.”
“Know this. Your marriage will tarnish like
the silver you plan to polish.”
“Out! Out! Out!” Jill’s
shouting jerks her out of her rest.
She bolts into a sitting position. The back of her neck aches. She’s covered
with perspiration.
The
crash of the dinner plate in the kitchen fails to wake Jill. She struggles to
unravel her attack on Joseph. Damning words come back: “You! You’re wrong! You
can’t keep your hands off me. You can’t leave me alone. If you would have left
me alone last Christmas, maybe later I would have been able to carry our new
baby. But no, you couldn’t wait. You can never wait.”
“Well Miss Self Reliant. Letting your
secrets slip out now are we.”
The accusing familiar deep male voice frightens Jill. Her hands shoot up
to protect her chest as if someone stripped her nightgown away. A cold sweat
clutches her. She shivers.
“Don’t play innocent with me. You know very well what
secrets. You finally revealed to Joseph that you blame him for the loss of
Christine.”
Jill
mounts no defense. She knows she’s guilty of planning to unload the attack on
Joseph when he really annoyed her, when he became too clingy.
“You use everyone, even your own dead
daughter.”
Jill
accepts the bites as if they are lashes for her mistakes, for her assault on
Joseph.
“You want to claim your attack on Joseph
just slipped out, don’t you? Trouble is you’d have to admit you made a
mistake. You aren’t in control like you think you are. Even worse. If you can
make a mistake, others can make one too. That might mean you’re no better than
anyone else. Trusting yourself is no better than trusting them. You might even
have to forgive your mother, your father.”
Jill
claps her hands over her ears.
“Didn’t you say when you and Joseph were
buying a car, that you would forgive him if he did something wrong? Blame him
for the loss of Christine. Kick him out of the bedroom. Hardly sounds like
forgiveness. I think this so called marriage is built on a sandy foundation.
It’s starting to crumble.”
‘Maybe Joseph doesn’t love
me anymore.’
Jill’s head sinks into the
pillow with the phrase wife or substitute echoing.
An annoying phrase from a
deep, male voice replaces it, pelting her like a throbbing headache: “fifty-fifty, fifty-fifty, fifty-fifty.”
Jill recognizes the
devilish messenger.
“I give your marriage fifty percent chance of success. Heads I
win, tails you win, heads I win, tails you lose, tails you lose, you lose, y-o-u l-o-s-e.”
“Yesterday
you attended a session that asked whether your family life was built on sand or
a rock. You related some concerns that might suggest the family foundation
might not have been as solid as you would have liked. That came back to haunt
you. Studies have shown that when you sleep, significant day’s events may
return as a dream. Depending upon how you’ve lived, certain parts of the day
reflect more powerfully than others.”
Jill
considers Bill’s information about her nightmare. After he sips his cooling tea, she says, “It’s
more than that.”
The
moment the words escape, Jill regrets it. The door is now opened to admitting she hears a male voice.
‘He’ll think I’m crazy,’ she predicts.
Bill’s
patient silence convinces Jill to test Bill’s acceptance. Little by little Jill
reveals the presence of a damning male voice. When Jill admits the male voice has haunted her for years,
Bill sits up alert like a guard dog in the house who heard approaching footsteps
outside.
“Does
the voice threaten?”
“It accuses me. And sometimes it predicts,
like last night.”
He
asks, “Have you shared this experience with anyone else?”
“Are
you kidding! And have someone think I’m crazy.” After a moment she asks, “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”
How do you help someone who
is having recurring nightmares?
haiku capsule:
male accusing voice
middle of the night attacks
sanity questioned
Next blog: I’m a burden.
No comments:
Post a Comment