The Time I Woke Myself Up Laughing
Not something I intentionally made, but I had a weird dream, and drew part of it when I woke up.
Nobby Nobbs is a corporal from the City Watch in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Nobby is renowned for his stink and general lack of hygiene.
I dreamt that Nobby Nobbs and I were being chased out of a castle into the courtyard at night. Somehow, Nobby’s eyes popped out and started hopping around on their own, as a pair. I knew (as one does in a dream) that if his eyes escaped, he would be able to regenerate himself from them.
The guards apparently knew this too, because they started chasing after the eyeballs. But the guards couldn’t bear something about the eyeballs (either the lingering stench of Nobby Nobbs, or the general concept of hopping, disembodied eyeballs). Whenever a guard got too close to the bouncing orbs, he would collapse down into himself until there were just a shield and a helmet clattering to the cobblestones. Picture the collapsible maintenance droids in Star Wars Episode I, and you’ll have the general idea.
Some of the guards decided that covering the eyeballs with a handkerchief would be the safest course of action. As they began their attempts, I caught a glimpse of the page in the guard manual that depicts some common mistakes one might make when trying to trap two disembodied eyeballs in a handkerchief.
I have reproduced below, as faithfully as possible, the diagram that I dreamed:
The first two seemed reasonable enough. But something about “Is chikn” was too much for me. I don’t know if it was the comically bad spelling of “chicken,” the obviously non-chicken handkerchief sculpture, or the way a voice in my head kept repeating “is chikn” over and over again. But I found that diagram so funny that I woke myself up with stifled, hysterical laughter.
I’ve coughed myself awake before, but giggling myself awake was a new experience.
I’ve coughed myself awake before, but never giggled myself awake. It took me a minute or two of lying on my side, gasping for breath, before I was able to wake up enough stop laughing.
