[I discovered this in a file of some old writings. It was scrawled in pen on a few sheets of a small spiral notebook that had been torn out and stapled together. It was in my handwriting, but I have no recollection of writing it or of the dream it details. I'm guessing it was written about 8 years ago.]


I dreamed last night. And in the dream I woke to strange noises in the house or if not strange noises, I woke up knowing someone was there. Whatever sixth sense it is that lets you know when someone is staring at you was going off the charts and startled me from sleep.

She was either oblivious or unwakeable – I don’t know if I remembered trying to wake her. But alone I rose to search the apartment. Perhaps she was even awake and talking to me, but like a siren call, I was drawn by something, some presence.

I moved through rooms without out my feet touching the floor and drifted into the living room where the something was. A dark figure moved strangely and soundlessly from spot to spot stealing bits of everything. It took a curio, a picture, a cd, a handful of the wall, a piece of the air. It didn’t carry a sack, but each stolen item simply vanished into its grasp.

I moved toward it and it merely shifted directions, consciously ignoring me. Neither of us made a sound as I approached it in the darkness. I tried to travel the whole distance between us, but seemed to scarcely make any progress toward it.

I reached it in the kitchen and suddenly (yet in the dream world, the change was unnoticeable as often happens) it went from some weird flitting shadow thing to a person, in jeans and a dark hooded sweatshirt. This strange stalking dance of ours ended and it went from ignoring me to a furious, yet still silent, response as I grabbed the arm of the sweatshirt.

We spun into each other’s grasp and struggled, standing and stumbling, crashing and spinning through the house. This feral vicious thing slung me around with a strength that matched my own.

Still she didn’t wake.

Through the living room and into the bathroom we crashed. In that small place we did great destruction, ripping the shower curtain from its rings, knocking shelves off the wall and scattering their contents, crushing bottles and boxes underfoot.

I was slammed back against the medicine cabinet and felt its mirrored face shatter. Pinned against the wall, off balance over the toilet, I felt my arm moving of its own accord along the wall, my hands frantically searching for the light switch as my enemy pressed his forearm into my face and my face into the wall.

My fingers found the switch and flipped it and with the sudden burst of light the situation also instantly changed and we two adversaries stood still facing each other in the center of the room, a bigger bathroom now with walls receding from us, walls covered in mirrors reflecting both our images. In the dream, I watched from outside myself in the third person as I, standing in boxers and a t-shirt stared into the face of the night visitor in the sweatshirt who was also me.

This feral beastly burglar version of my self stared right back and said two emotionless words in explanation.

"I’m hungry."

Then I awoke.