Nightmare on My Street

          I wake up in the night, sweat rolling into my eyes, breath rasping in and out of my chest, heart pounding.  My eyes unfocused, I still see the blood splashing in front of me, spraying out of so many gashes in my body that I look like a Christmas Tree Fountain.  My hand grips convulsively, still trying to maintain a grip on the knife… the knife that…. yes the knife that I was protecting myself with.  Protecting from what?  I still can’t focus, can’t get the blood out of my head.  I start to panic, writhing on the bed.  In the dark, I raise both hands to head and to chest.  Wet.  Wet with blood.  Damn the light.  I can’t see shit in here.  Somewhere in the room, I hear a creaking, screeching, nails on chalkboard squeal.  The first crystal clear thought that enters my head, a little East Indian, no legs, dirty, covered with a disgusting blanket, knuckling his way through dark streets, his small board on wheels, creaking, squeaking.  Oh God, no, that was in X-Files.  I sit up, twisting my head back and forth, trying to see.  Blood still pours from my forehead, chest.  There is a person next to me in the bed.  I can feel them.  Skin cold, not moving.  No, no, no.  What is happening to me here?  I’ve got to get to the light.  I reach out for the bed lamp, grasping it, knocking it over in my panic.  The sick sound of a light bulb blowing.  The sound of my heart in my chest threatens to overwhelm me. I lurch out of the bed, trip, drop to the floor, crushing the corner of the headboard into my temple in the process.  My brain lights up with spotlights.  I crawl across the floor, stumbling and falling across Lord only knows what, piles of something, no time to even get an impression.  My nose breaking on the door jamb lets me know its time to get up.  New Blood, more Blood.  I literally pull myself up the jamb, reaching for the light switch.  Heartbeat calming, nightmare fading.  I find the switch, turn it on.  Blood covers both sides of the bed.  Covers the Sigo.  Covers the knife protruding from her back.  Covers my body completely, mingling with my own from hundreds of small cuts in my own body.  This isn’t a dream.  I’m not sleeping.  This is happening