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Scribe
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Fifty Miles of Circus, Surrounded by Reality
Posts: 75
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Oh Darling!
“Oh darling, I just had the most incredible dream!”
The light clicked on and Linda turned to see her husband sitting up, bright-eyed and enthusiastic, quite ready to tell her his experience.
She groaned, then spoke, “Please dear, go back to sleep. Tell me about your dream tomorrow, it must be 2 A.M. right now.”
“It’s just 1 o’ clock dear, and trust me, I’ve got to tell you about this.”
His eyes were sparkling, and she looked in to them, glaring, but as she looked she did a double-take. Something was off, something about her husband was very wrong. And then she realized what it was.
“I was in a beautiful forest, full of exotic trees with bright purple fruits and six-legged tigers and all sorts of flora and fauna that you’d never really see. Well, that was amazing enough, but then out of the blue I saw you. I didn’t notice at first the state you were in, but when I did, I was so distressed. I don’t quite know how to describe what was up with you,” and there he paused, evidently gathering his thoughts.
Hardly a word of what he said registered with Linda. She was too busy staring at him in a slack-jawed horror.
“Bob.”
“Well, it was certainly bipedal, but I don’t recall if it had a tail or not-”
“Bob!” and as she said her husband’s name Linda drew away from him, nearly falling off their queen-size bed. “Look at your hands!” she shouted at him.
And he did, and in a moment he was shouting too. The sound of their mutual distress mingled in the air, until Linda had the presence of mind to calm herself down a little.
“How did that happen? What did you do?”
Bob fell silent, and there was quiet in the house again. Then he turned from his hands and addressed her slowly, deep in thought.
“I don’t know, but I think…”
“Wait, do you need treatment? We should call a doctor. I’m going to go get the phone now!”
She leapt from her chair went to the living room, where they kept the handset. She picked it up and dialed for urgent care while walking back to the bedroom.
A nurse picked up the phone at the same moment as she entered the room.
“Hello, this is Success Health Care’s urgent care line, how may I help you?”
“I’m Linda Cunningham, my husband Bob just woke up and he has this horrible… I don’t even know how to describe it, it’s just that something’s happened to his hands.”
“Alright, just try to be calm. Do you need 911?”
Linda didn’t answer; she had turned her eyes to Bob for a brief moment and stopped listening to the nurse.
Her husband was curled up on the bed in a fetal position, head tucked between his knees and his hands, if they could still rightfully be called that, clutched together around his legs. He was sobbing, or moaning, she couldn’t tell which. With him laying like this, back exposed, she saw what she hadn’t noticed before. From the middle of his back, along his spine, up to the middle of his head, his skin was terribly raw. It looked like it had been burnt, or very harshly abraded, and where his hair had once been on the back o his head, hanging to his neck, there was something more akin to a single massive scab.
“Hello? Are you there Mrs. Cunningham?” she finally heard the nurse say.
“Yes!” she replied, almost yelling, “help us, we need an ambulance, I think.”
She put down the phone and ran to her husband. Trying to gently pry his head up so he would look into her eyes again she questioned him in as soothing a voice as she could muster.
“What happened Bob? How’d all this happen to you?”
“Ohh, I know what it was, Linda,”
She asked him what it was.
“I know what it was,” he repeated, and it seemed more faint this time.
She repeated her question, but this time he only got half way through his response before it all cut off.
Linda’s mind was blank. The room was dark around her, and she gradually realized that she had just awakened. There was a small sense of disappointment, not quite knowing how it would have eneded, but more than a bit of relief too. It had been quite disturbing. Sitting up and looking at the clock she realized that it wasn’t anywhere near time to wake up, but she knew she couldn’t fall asleep with her mind still all in a tizzy.
After fumbling around for the switch, she flipped on the bedside light then gently nudged her sleeping husband.
As soon as he finally rolled over and looked at her she cried out to him, “Oh darling, I just had the most incredible dream!”
If you deign to criticize this, then I'd particularly like to know if you enjoyed the pacing, and whether or not you felt that any part of it either dragged on, or came too abruptly.
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Recommended book of the moment: Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Currently reading: The Scholars by Wu Ching-Tzu
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