Went to bed with a wicked headache last night.
Poor Jack had to deal with me being a whiney-butt the whole time. He usually sleeps with the TV on and the volume about average, but I've been forcing him to nearly mute it every night since I've been home. I usually let him leave it on but last night I was in such a mess I made him turn it off immediately. And then I tried to sleep.
Never in my life have I had so much trouble trying to fall asleep. I was exhausted, but my head felt like it was clamped in a vice and every possible sensory input was like being hit in the face with a hammer. Because the kitten can never make up her mind about where she wants to be in the house, we have to leave our door cracked or else she'll scratch on it until someone opens it for her. Also, we leave the light in the kitchen on in case someone has to get up for a drink of water. With the door cracked, the light from the kitchen shines directly in my face. Normally it isn't bright enough to be an issue, but last night it caused me excruciating agony. I tried an ice-pack over my forehead, but all that did was make my eyes feel like they were freezing which made the headache worse. Finally I surrendered and went to the kitchen to do what I never do.
I took medicine.
I hate swallowing pills. Especially when a headache is making me sick. I managed to get two acetaminophen tablets down without vomiting and went back to bed. For maybe another ten minutes my head was a raging belfry packed with insane ringing, and then the headache subsided enough for me to sleep.
That's when the nightmare came.
Gah what a twisted dream. It was vivid, which is not unusual for me, but this time it was also believable which made it infinitely worse. My family was at some kind of Walmart super store or something and we were shopping for groceries. We must have been in North Carolina because I knew we were on vacation. While we're shopping this old man, possibly homeless, in a wheel chair begins to follow my little brother around, asking him questions. I'm not too worked up at this point, so I just keep moving, making sure to keep an eye on Jack. The kid is 17 so he can handle himself. It's not like he's a prime subject for abduction or anything. Still, I keep an eye on him. Anyway, the old guy just keep pushing his wheel chair around the store, bumping into us over and over while we're shopping and he's always asking Jack questions about what we're shopping for and where we're from. Jack doesn't answer anything at all about where we're from. That's important.
Anyway, we check out and we're headed out of the store when I remember, I almost forgot to buy shoe laces. This part of the dream is creepily realistic because my sneakers really do need new shoe laces. So Dad sends Jack and I back in the store to go grab some shoe laces really quick and then come out to meet him at the car. The shoe laces are all the way in the back and while we're headed there, through the electronics section, the old guy in the wheel chair tries to ask Jack another question, but this time he grabs Jack's arm to stop him from walking away. That's when I lose it. I pull Jack away from the old guy and I shout at him to leave us alone, hoping to cow him into going away. I specifically remember my voice being almost like a weapon against him. While everything else being said in the dream was kinda muted and I really only understood because I was making up the dialogue myself, when I shouted it was clear and loud and almost sharp.
The old guy kinda backs off and Jack and I leg it to the back of the store. I start looking through the laces, trying to find a pair that will match my shoes and not be too short when all of a sudden the pack of laces I'm holding gets caught on something. I turn to my left to look and see what it is and it's the old guy in the wheel chair again. He's very close to me and he's got one end of the shoe lace in his fist. He tells me he wants to talk to me and he looks completely insane. I don't think to let go of the shoe lace. Instead I kick him as hard as I can which, it turns out, is not hard at all. For some reason I can't move fast enough to deliver a solid kick. It's like moving through water. So I shout again. This time it's a scream, really. I swear at him and call for help. My voice is even more powerful this time, echoing through the whole store. A few people show up and they pull the old man in his chair away from me but they don't really know what to think. It's just an old man in a wheel-chair, after all. How could he be hurting anyone? I try to explain it to them when from out of an aisle next to me come the Posey kids. All of them. Matt, Caleb, Sarah and Rachel.
Now, I have a huge amount of respect and love for these kids. They do all kinds of work with homeless ministries in St Augustine and they're so full of love for people who are down on their luck. Matt and Caleb even have friends on St George Street that are homeless and they'll strike up friendly conversations with them when we're walking past. It's great. But this time, I was horrified at how nice they started being to the old guy in the wheel chair.
Matt and Caleb try and talk to him but I pull them away as fast as I can. I'm trying to warn them about him when Rachel suddenly gets down on one knee and starts talking to the guy, her hand on his shoulder. I'm freaking out now. Rachel is the same age as my little brother and she's an amazing vocalist and is so full of the love of God that the idea of anything harming her or putting her in danger sets my teeth on edge. I push past Matt and Caleb, who still don't see anything dangerous in what's going on, and I grab Rachel by the shoulder to pull her away from the old man. He sees what I'm doing and that's when I realize he's got my knife.
I have a bright orange pocket knife that I carry sometimes in case I need a sharp edge. It's only maybe two and a half inches long, but that's really bigger than I need. Still, I keep it because it's useful. Well this homeless guy has it now. He must have picked it out of my pocket when he was holding the other end of the shoe lace or something. He flips it open and tries to slash at Rachel's throat. I pull her sideways so he ends up only giving her a cut across her upper arm. Matt and Caleb run to their sister, who is only bleeding a little bit, but I'm completely focused on the wheel-chair guy. He stands up and I see that the chair is just a sham so people will think less of him and won't think he's a threat. He comes at me with the knife and we grapple for a second and then I drop him like a ton of bricks. I don't know how I do it, I just knock the guy on his butt. The whole moving-through-water effect is gone. Then, in a fit of anger, I stomp on one of his feet until I've broken it. I guess I wanted him to be crippled in actuality. The knife in on the floor, still open, but he can't reach it because he can't walk now which, in dream logic, means he can't crawl either. Somehow his nose got broken too. So he's kinda just lying in a little pool of his own nose-blood, next to his wheel chair, and Jack and I start heading for the exit. I'm ready to start crying at this point.
Then the guy starts talking and Jack and I stop. I can't understand him too well because his nose is broken, but after a second I see he's holding my wallet. He must have picked that out of my pocket while we were fighting. He's reading my address out loud, city and state and everything. Then he looks at me and smiles his crazy smile and asks if everyone in my family is an organ donor. He asked the quesiton in such a malicious way I knew immediately that he was threatening all of us. So I pick up the knife off the ground and I jump on him, ready to thrust it into his eye. I raise the knife...
..and I wake up.
I have killed the monsters in my dreams before, but I'm never happy about it so I'm glad I woke up before I killed this guy. It was just so real. I still remember details, like how when I was walking through the electronics department toward the back of the store, I saw a box for the StarCraft battle chest on the shelf to my right. Also, there were iPhone accessories to my left. The shoe laces were grey and red, like the shoe laces on my big hiking boots that I don't wear any more. Caleb was wearing that beanie he always wears and Rachel was wearing a plain white t-shirt. Matt had on a red flannel shirt. The wheel chair was blue vinyl and chromed steel, just like the chair my grandfather used before he died. The crazy guy was wearing a big, baggy grey jacket like the one hanging in my closet. His foot sounded like a stick breaking when I stomped on it. Also, oddly, although the knife actually cut Rachel, there was no blood on it when I picked it up to stab the guy. I even remember the face of the cashier girl who checked our family out before I went back for the shoe laces. She had brown eyes and hair and a cute nose. She was maybe 18 years old. Her hair was in a pony tail with a red hair tie. She wore a green vest.
Sometimes I can pull a sort of meaning out of the dreams I have, like "Don't eat so many donuts" or "Run serpentine when being chased by a rabid dog" but this time I've got nothing. "Stab crazy old wheel-chair guys in the face before they do it to you first"? I don't think that's a valid moral. I guess "Don't go to sleep with a bad headache" might apply, but that's pretty weak. I've got nothing honestly. I just hope I never have that dream again.
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