Dream Journal: The Old House and the Would-Be Murderer
I walked through the meandering halls of a dark house. At times, my fear of the dark got the best of me and the urge to run out into the night was overwhelming, but alas, a door was nowhere in sight, and neither was a window big enough to fit an adult. The floors creaked, cool gusts would blow by me. A ghost? Perhaps. An open window? Probably more of a possibility, but I, being the kind of person who believes in things unseen, decided on the ghost option, giving myself the fright that I wanted so hardly to shake.
Suddenly, a red flashing light shone in the distance. “Curiosity killed the cat,” I thought to myself, but nevertheless, I was drawn to it. I could feel my heart pounding, the lump in my throat building. A web waved like a flag every time that ghost flew by, and each time, it seemed to have more flies caught in it. I tried hard to avoid it touching me. It was right in the way of the light, but it would not stop me; I would see what this crimson signal was all about. I ducked under the web and crawled past it. I got closer and closer to the light. I felt as if it were calling to me. “Come closer,” it would say. “I am your friend.” Strangely, it brought me comfort.
I finally reached the room the light was coming from. The walls were illuminated red each time it would flash, its light piercing through the webs that tried to hinder it. “No more of this. I’ll free you,” I said to it. I looked around for something to grab the infested webs with. There was no way I was touching this grossness. I found a pointing stick, one that had a cartoonish gloved hand pointing its finger at the end of it. I grabbed it and quickly proceeded to clear the thick, massive webs. And suddenly...a sound.
“Blip, blop, bleep, woooo,” I heard coming from it. Could it be...? “Oh. My. God,” I said out loud with a very wide smile on my face. “R2???” Out came R2-D2 (yes, the droid from Star Wars) from his blanket of webs. Overjoyed surely I think because he no longer had that mess all around him. Sadly, I don’t understand Droid, but I knew he was being friendly. Now that I had him by my side, I was no longer afraid of the gusts of wind blowing by me. I had a loyal friend. He led me through the meandering halls and out the front door that had been so hard to find.
This dream then shifted to a completely different setting. R2 was off in his world, and I was back in mine. I walked through the streets of Laredo, my hometown, but something was very wrong. Fires burned on every block. Crime was rampant. I could hear screams in the distance, along with gunshots and police sirens. I heard the laughter of a few drunk men, one of which was being very violent towards a woman while his friends seemed to be entertained by it all. Anger overwhelmed me, as did fear. The fear was mainly because I knew that I was not going to let them continue doing this. I would be the one to put a stop to it. I brazenly walked up to the group of men and told them to leave her alone. They stopped and stared at me, the group looking at the abusive man waiting for his next move. He got closer to me and asked, “Oh, do you want to be the bitch that takes her place?” I got more nervous at this point while the woman sat crying on the ground, her tears glistening by the light of the nearby fire. “You leave her alone. She’s coming with me,” I said. “Take her,” the man laughed. I admit, I was surprised that that was all it took, that I wasn’t at the end of about a dozen fists. I helped the woman up and she held on to my arm, burying her face in the fabric of my shirt and crying as we walked away. We suddenly reached my grandparents’ home in Laredo, my hometown, but it was as it was when they were still living. This didn’t phase me in the dream. It was as if this was real life. I told her that she could stay in the smaller house that my Grandpa had built for my great-grandmother, my Grandma’s mother, who had passed years before I was born. The woman thanked me as I opened the door for her. I went into the main house to say hello to Grandma and Grandpa. “Hey Reenie boy,” said my Grandpa as I went up to him and hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. I could smell his cologne so vividly, feel the softness of his “guayabera” shirt, and hear his footsteps, the ones that seemed louder depending on the kind of boots he wore, on the wooden floor of the kitchen as he walked towards me. “Hi, Grandpa! Hi, Grammita,” I said as I walked towards my Grandma who was sitting at the kitchen table working on the books for my mom’s beauty shop, which was right next door. “Hi, hijito (ee-hee-toh, Spanish for little son),” she said as I gave her about 6 quick kisses in succession on the cheek, an imitation of the way she would kiss all of us grandchildren. The doorbell rang and my grandparents looked towards the door. “Quien sera,” asked Grandpa. “I’ll check,” I said. “There are a lot of shady people out there and I think we should maybe turn the lights off so they think we aren’t here,” I said as the door slowly opened. A very tall and muscular man came through the door. He wore a trucker-style hat over his straight shoulder-length blonde hair. Tattoos covered his entire body, starting from under his nose. HIs skin was very heavily scarred. His eyes, empty. His mouth...missing. Tattooed scarred flesh took the place of what may or may not have once been is mouth. He had no shirt on, and there was no specific design to his tattoos, just shapes, almost paisley-like at some points. In his right hand...a small revolver. I became terrified. “This is it,” I thought to myself. “This is how I go. Will it hurt? I need to protect Grandma and Grandpa first and make sure he doesn’t hurt them.” I looked at the large century-old portrait of Jesus that hung in the living room, illuminated by a neon-lite that was added in the 60′s by my grandfather, one that would only be switched off by him. “Help us, Jesus,” I prayed. “Please. I don’t want to die and I don’t want him to hurt my grandparents.” “Grandma, Grandpa, go out the back door,” I said in Spanish, hoping and praying that the man would not understand me. Grandpa had his arm around Grandma, who held onto him terrified. “Salte, Caro (Leave, Caro),” Grandpa said to her, but she would not leave his side as he stood his ground. He then got in front of her, blocking her from any harm that may come. He stood right next to me as the man pointed his gun at my chest. Not able to speak, the man reached for his wallet and signaled to us to give him what he wanted. I looked at Grandpa who was staring the man down. Grandpa had been a police officer for over 30 years and was now retired. He didn’t fear too many men, and if he did, he hid it well. I reached for my wallet slowly and inched towards the man. I could see sweat running down his face, the hair that peeked from under his hat and around his ears soaked in it. He was nervous, and I had to take advantage of that. “Quedate conmigo, (Stay with me),” said Grandpa, but I knew I had to make a move. He still had his gun pointed at me. I reached out with my right hand to give him my wallet and as he reached his left hand to get it, I grabbed the gun from his right, surprising myself. I didn’t hesitate and shot three times. The man groaned loudly as he fell back onto the floor. My Grandma screamed as Grandpa held her. I walked backwards towards them, still aiming at the man who was now bleeding out on the green carpet. He looked at me angrily as he lay there, a look that said “I should have killed you when I had the chance.” I looked at the portrait of Jesus and said, “I’m sorry I hurt someone, but he was going to hurt us and I couldn’t let that happen.” I broke down and started crying. Grandpa put his hand on my shoulder. “Ya mi’jito. Ya.”
I added a sketch of the intruder. I promise he looked a lot scarier in person.