Summer, the year 1999

Summer, the year 1999

            I was nine. The dream entered me unwillingly and without warning. I was a victim of my own fever. My senses picked up things that I was unaware were reality. I was between a world of dreams and sentience. My dad dug through the icebox downstairs, a sound that was like crashing glaciers to my ears while I slept above in the loft. His words left his mouth as a whisper that was so loud it shredded through my skull. I’m sure I was sweating, feeling the peak of my illness. The heat of Missouri nights in summer is febrile, and the chirping of the insects and peeper frogs in the forest grows deafening. While this sound was usually comforting and familiar, tonight it transformed into helpless fear. My usual boundaries of black static protection had been compromised; the fear penetrated through the easily shattered veil above our home in the woods. Dad was in his studio below me, his fingers clicking away on his laptop keyboard. Mom was nodding off in an armchair, until the whistle of the teapot pierced her soft snores. Then suddenly It was outside. The typical oversized green head, eyes large and glossy like two gleaming black beetles. My rising temperatures saw fit to increase the bizarre experience by dressing It in dirty brown overalls. The piercing sound of katydids grew louder and their usual slow rhythm was now stressed and urgent. He crouched on the deck outside our front door, unaware that I knew. Now something new overpowered my fear--- anger and a pure, innate drive to protect my family. The splintering noise of he katydids rose to its peak and turned the clear night sky into glass which suddenly shattered and sent shards raining in slow motion onto my sleeping body. The sound and fear of this hallucination was so extraordinary that it pushed me to the surface of my nightmarish slumber.

 In a panicked state I broke away from my sickbed drenched with sweat and climbed down the ladder to alert my family. I was ready to wage war on whatever evil crouched outside. Delirious, I shuffled into my father’s office and immediately he sensed my distress. Being a father that believes the intrinsic truth of a girl’s fairytale fears, he bravely stepped outside with, if I remember correctly, an axe. When he reappeared, his calm expression remained. Without delay I stepped outside to get a look for myself. The deck was clear, so was our yard, as well as the sky. The moon was so round and luminous that nothing could hide. The veil was still damaged and it was important to be wary, but nothing else would dare approach our hearth. As my father continued to look about with a hand on the butt of his axe and the other around my shoulder, I stared out across the clear air between the moon and I. Air that was unusually clear… Air that soon floated the sweet green aroma of the dogwood trees past my vigilant senses and reminded me that there will be more nights like this one.

Reviews

[Gary Dale Burns]

There is only a small amount of editing, tightening up some sentences, keeping the barest essentials, that would make this piece finished. It is very terrifying and ecstatically beautiful by the end. Both strength and weakness, fear and calm. You balance these elements quite nicely and sketch such an atmosphere for them all to exist in. I really recommend looking this over once again and gaining a new appreciation for its merit!

[Mark Giles]

Lovely stuff. You are a great writer.