Go Back To Sleep

I had a horrible nightmare on Sunday night. It wasn't just that the wind was howling and the rain was hitting particularly hard on the side of the house. I'm sure the sleep was already anxious as most Sunday night's are, especially when I sleep up in Durham. The details of the dream are very vague compared to when I usually remember one. Although I can't recall what exactly was happening or how I even got to what I do remember, I know this; the emotions of the dream I felt were very real.

We never remember a dream's beginning, but that we are there. This particular instance, the thing I remembered the most was the screen door. I'm not sure where it was supposed to be, but it wasn't supposed to be where I imagined it. This room I had been in several of hundreds of times, if not thousands. The screen door, brown and weathered was where a usual window was. I had dreamt the door in this spot, and I'm sure with the help of the forceful winds rapping the trees, rain and other objects against the house, the sound was not all imagined or made up in my mind. The door, if I recall correctly, I was annoyed at. It had been banging repeatedly against something. Wind had not only knocked on it, but was now desperate to get the attention of anyone it could. I couldn't remember why, but my hands were wet and I had tears running down my face. The door kept slapping, kept beating up on literally nothing. But it was louder than the whistling wind whispering through the window.

I woke up at that moment and the scariest was this. My heart was thumping, beating fast and I wasn't sure how or why, or where I'd been, but I looked for the door, instead a closed window. It was darker than my dream, but the emotions felt the same. The door not there, but the wind whistling and playing tunes with the windows and branches outside. I was already sitting, looking around in the dark room. I looked over, having a certain feeling of death, and blood, and sadness. I grabbed the woman to my side, remembering at that moment why I was so flustered, why I was sad in my dream and now. She had been killed, murdered as I slept next to her. Of course, thankfully that had only been like the door of this upstairs room; part of my dream.

She resisted the urge to awake. But I had to know, know that she was alright. Tears streaking down my face. She moved slowly, and with sadness in her voice she rumbled, 'what's wrong?' The air returned to the room, and I replied, 'nothing, just a bad dream. go back to sleep...' She restlessly rolled back and forth for a second or two and then found her slumped pose again in the comfort of the sheets. I whispered, 'my love.'


Am I strong enough for this?