Prologue

Yessir, I'm spiteful.

I slip into a nightmare like cold feet into a pair of slippers. A distorted figure greets me when I emerge into the subconscious.

“Are you dreaming?” It flashes a toothy smile and melts back into the colorless landscape before I can respond. I stare at the spot where he stood, my mouth still gaping wide open with my retort on my tongue.

I don’t dream.

As far as my memory goes, I have never dreamed or had a dream. Even now, I struggle to find the right verb to describe exactly what I experience when I fall asleep. The word nightmare is so limited, after all. It’s a noun, commonly used with the past tense of “to have” and nothing more; maybe we made the word that way on purpose to alienate ourselves from an unpleasant phenomenon.

Dreams, meanwhile, have a broader scope that stretches from the visions and sensations we experience as we sleep to mistaken illusions and sought-after aspirations. Dreams give you a warm and fuzzy feeling when you wake up in the morning…like slippers. I don’t wear slippers and my toes always turn purple in the winter. Maybe I should get a pair.

Unfortunately for my poor, abused feet, my preference for walking around barefoot is overwhelming. I love the feeling of skin underfoot: raw and sensual. I suppose nightmares hold a similar appeal, for me.

And because I’m such a lame person, I went through some forums the other day, researching if “nightmare” could function as a verb and came upon some pretty harsh remarks that criticized a line by Mark Zusak in The Book Thief: Every night Liesel would nightmare.

“You've set my ears on edge”, one man with an alliteration of a name wrote six years ago.

“I have never heard this, and hope never to hear it again”, an individual with the avatar of an ape declared two years ago.

I wonder if Shakespeare received similar critique when he introduced the word “swagger”, now carried on in the 21st century by its child “swag”. Someday, I’m going to create an account, make my avatar a Grumpy Cat meme, and respond as the newest post in this silly thread:

Well, I…I nightmare.

Author's Note

I understand if my transitions are choppy, but I'm pretty scatterbrained and like to jump around between loosely connected ideas. Since these chapters are pretty autobiographical, the narration is probably going to stay that way - sorry if it bothers you. (シ_ _)シ

Side Note: I'm looking for critique on the last line - I'm not sure which words to italicize exactly for effect.

Reviews

[Marianne Rose]

I follow where you jump- no apology necessary! I'm interested to know where you take this. It would be interesting to see the nightmaring and then what you do in waking life- the interplay between the two. Maybe this is a book of loosely stringed chapters on nightmares, but it reads like a narrative of a character who has a story to tell that involves some mystery. I like the italics for "I nightmare". I hear "But me? I nightmare" using the italics as you have them. And I like using it as a verb a lot- stay with that- I get it- "to nightmare" is a verb me too.

[Monica Chen]

Thank you so much! I might actually make that edit as it does sounds better than "well I...I nightmare" and I'm thrilled that you see the word "nightmare" as a verb as well.

[PaintedBirdy]

I'm not going to lie, I used this as a writing prompt for my writing today. I hope thats okay. So, thanks, haha.

Oh! and to review: i agree that it's a little choppy, or that it reads as a first draft. i look forward to what you do with this!

[Monica Chen]

I'm honored that you used this as your writing prompt - and look forward to very sporadic updates as I'm still debating about my approach with this. :)