Bill's World

I used to have a very bad habit of scaring the devil out of my wife when I would jump straight up in bed, yelling and thrashing about like Judgment Day had come and I was nowhere near ready.
She survived, the little guys in white uniforms didn’t come to take me away, and now I can look back on those days and chuckle – heh…heh…heh…oh, yes I can. I just do it when my wife is not around.

We were sitting around the dinner table the other evening, finishing dessert, lolly-gagging,  when the subject of bad dreams came up. One tale led to another and pretty soon some of us had become a little silly. Actually, I kind of lost my mind.
I tend to get a bit edgy when somebody goes poking around in my dreams.
My record goes way back when I slept with my brother, Marcelle. We slept in the “fire room” which also was the living room. We had a parlor, but we didn’t spend a lot of time there. Our two older sisters brought their dates there, but the only time I got the sights and smells in the parlor was when I sneaked in when nobody else was around.
I think my brother was the reason for my early-on bad dreams. He was four years older and would come in about four hours later at night than anyone else in the family. It would be cold in the fire room by that time – freezing, really.
He’d come in, shove me aside between those cold sheets and then crawl into the warmest spot in the house – where my hot little body had been sleeping. I was half asleep but I know that the experience landed deep inside my psyche and became justifiable material as a base for those future horrific dreams.

Anyhow, to get back to that dinner talk.
I told them about the night when, having been freshly married for a few months, I rose from my downy pad and made like a maniac way beyond the safe margin. I jumped straight up in bed, yelling, trying to fight off something on my head and…my new bride wondering how she could get out of those  matrimonial chains that bind.
Her heart pumping and on the verge of exploding, she finally made it to a bedside table and got a light turned on.
She said that I paused in mid-fit, looked around as if to say “where am I?” and then said: ‘I….uh…had just washed my hair and was outside and it started raining molasses!’”
It might well have been a carnivorous cannibal  slashing at me with a hatchet, as far as my wife was concerned. I apologized, told her that I would enroll in a dream-management course and went back to sleep.
She held up a finger and said: “That’s one.” And went back to sleep.

Number Two came a year or so later.
We had built a house by then and were looking around for furniture. We had heard of a place in Morganton (Nite Furniture Co., I think it was) that had good furniture at a reasonable price. We went, saw, and bought.
Everything went well for a few months when the marital bed once again erupted one night as I, once again, assumed the role of raving maniac.  Except, more so, this time.
I remember in that dream that one of my loved ones – perhaps more than one – was about to get smashed, like something falling on him or her. I used every ounce of energy to prevent this. I was young and in good shape, tough, forceful. I hit the footboard of the bed with all of my energy – legs, arms, head – and it crumpled like a paper cup smashed between hands.
The foot end of the bed went down and came to rest at a crazy angle.
The light went on and I could see fire in my wife’s eyes.
A crowd had gathered outside, and all was so quiet.
Especially in our bedroom.
See what happens when your brother uses up the warmest spot in the house.

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