Sleeping in that bus became a fight between me and my parents. I'd hang around in their house as long as I could, watching TV and trying to fall asleep on the couch. Then my father would announce it was time to go to bed, and I'd fight it as far as I could. I'd beg, and I'd plead, and I'd tell him straight up how afraid I was. He'd yell and threaten and eventually I had to walk across the dark back yard by myself to that dark, cold bus and wait in the night for the next nightmare. When it came time to get up for school in the morning I was always so tired and worn out.
After a while, the dreams stopped. My father eventually came into some money which he used to build rooms onto the trailer for my little brother and myself, giving my older brother the bus to himself. The events around me transformed from being haunted by dolls to being chased by men in dark suits, meetings in the night with people in uniform, and memories of helicopters. I had a nightly courtship with an incubus, missed my period for nine months after my menarche, and fell in love with the "dream adventures" I began to have.
Sure there were plenty of nights I was still chased by dolls, and even zombies. But with the coming of the men in the business suits - I called them FBI agents - came a sense of dream empowerment. I soon figured out I could do all sorts of things in my dreams. I also figured out that if I got angry enough, I could do all sorts of things in real life. Maybe I couldn't float pots and pans and hit my chasers in the face like I could in my dreams, but I could tell you things. And sense things. And I knew that when it came to pendulums and card-reading, I was the child who was taking after her father.
In the dream world I had a daughter who looked just like her incubus father - pale and golden. I named her Jennifer, after King Arthur's Guinevere, because that means "White." My dreams molded again to me stealing Jenn from an on shop nursery and being chased by a giant kodiak bear again and again. I wanted my daughter back. I soon learned a healthy respect and fear of bears... to top off my other fears I had gained through the years.
Through all of this, I also learned to speak to "my spirit guides". I didn't know who they were: I didn't try to give them faces of famous dead people like so man people do. If they were Red, like myself, that was fine. If they weren't, that was fine, too. All I knew was they'd tell me things, like when to take a walk down a road so I could find that lost kitten who needed my help. Or when to take a walk at night to "meet with the fairies" - meetings I don't remember if I had them at all. They reassured me when the bullying was too much, they told me of this great destiny I had. They told me they couldn't tell me what it was exactly because if I knew, "I would refuse to accept it."
The nightmares at the bus door were all but forgotten by then.
I'd slip off into the woods to talk to them, to vent, and relied on the blowing wind as their answer. My entire waking world had grown to be far from mundane. All grown up as I am now I would say I probably had built the perfect escapism story, except for the physical confirmations I got time and time again. "Go this way and you'll find something," and I would. "Call so and so and this will happen." And it would.
"When you are in your 30's all of the things you are here for will begin to happen." I had to wait a long time for that one.
So much has happened since those days long ago; too much for me to put into this short story. I want to skip over the hard times, the good times, the fluffy times and go right into after I'd realized I wasn't dealing with fairies exactly, had grown to call my guides "The Fishbowl" and started seeking answers to why things were how they were around me in my life.
After a while, the dreams stopped. My father eventually came into some money which he used to build rooms onto the trailer for my little brother and myself, giving my older brother the bus to himself. The events around me transformed from being haunted by dolls to being chased by men in dark suits, meetings in the night with people in uniform, and memories of helicopters. I had a nightly courtship with an incubus, missed my period for nine months after my menarche, and fell in love with the "dream adventures" I began to have.
Sure there were plenty of nights I was still chased by dolls, and even zombies. But with the coming of the men in the business suits - I called them FBI agents - came a sense of dream empowerment. I soon figured out I could do all sorts of things in my dreams. I also figured out that if I got angry enough, I could do all sorts of things in real life. Maybe I couldn't float pots and pans and hit my chasers in the face like I could in my dreams, but I could tell you things. And sense things. And I knew that when it came to pendulums and card-reading, I was the child who was taking after her father.
In the dream world I had a daughter who looked just like her incubus father - pale and golden. I named her Jennifer, after King Arthur's Guinevere, because that means "White." My dreams molded again to me stealing Jenn from an on shop nursery and being chased by a giant kodiak bear again and again. I wanted my daughter back. I soon learned a healthy respect and fear of bears... to top off my other fears I had gained through the years.
Through all of this, I also learned to speak to "my spirit guides". I didn't know who they were: I didn't try to give them faces of famous dead people like so man people do. If they were Red, like myself, that was fine. If they weren't, that was fine, too. All I knew was they'd tell me things, like when to take a walk down a road so I could find that lost kitten who needed my help. Or when to take a walk at night to "meet with the fairies" - meetings I don't remember if I had them at all. They reassured me when the bullying was too much, they told me of this great destiny I had. They told me they couldn't tell me what it was exactly because if I knew, "I would refuse to accept it."
The nightmares at the bus door were all but forgotten by then.
I'd slip off into the woods to talk to them, to vent, and relied on the blowing wind as their answer. My entire waking world had grown to be far from mundane. All grown up as I am now I would say I probably had built the perfect escapism story, except for the physical confirmations I got time and time again. "Go this way and you'll find something," and I would. "Call so and so and this will happen." And it would.
"When you are in your 30's all of the things you are here for will begin to happen." I had to wait a long time for that one.
So much has happened since those days long ago; too much for me to put into this short story. I want to skip over the hard times, the good times, the fluffy times and go right into after I'd realized I wasn't dealing with fairies exactly, had grown to call my guides "The Fishbowl" and started seeking answers to why things were how they were around me in my life.
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