Across the street

It was late evening, and my parents and I finally arrived home from a long vacation. I was maybe seven years old at the time and spent most of the ride home asleep in the back of the car. Even then, I was a very heavy sleeper, and the car stopping and my parents getting out of the car did not wake me.

But I was, in fact alert, and saw the whole thing.

Across the street, the neighbor's house had a sloping driveway that went up the small hill to their house. It wasn't very big, but big enough where if one stood on the top of the driveway, one got a very nice view of our house.

And that is, somehow, where I was standing that night. I saw my parents gather my young form up from the car and carry my sleeping form up to and into the house, and them coming back moments later for the remaining luggage and other things left in the car. I was dreaming that I was standing there, watching it all unfold as it happened.

Was it a dream? Was I really there somehow? To this day, I still do not know. The logical, rational part of my mind says of course, it was a dream, I was visualizing in my mind what was subconsciously happening. But it was so vivid in my mind. It had so many details. My dreams are generally a wash of random images and random events. This was just like I was standing up on that driveway, watching everything unfold.

Years later, I still remember that moment. That creepy, unreal, otherworldly, almost paranormal moment. And somewhere in my brain, I cannot let go of the fact that it might have been real.

I don't like air conditioners

Utterly alone, except for that noise.  

I hated that noise.  From room to room I ran, trying to escape it.  The noise of a box air conditioner.  The box air conditioners -- the ones that are mounted from windows, hanging out from them and secured by the closed window -- were everywhere.  They were in every single room.  Even the bathroom.  I don't like air conditioners, I repeated aloud.  Over and over, running from room to room.  Every time I saw one, its droning hum invading my mind, ruining my thought.  I don't like air conditioners.  

Running to the center of the house, into the kitchen, I found a small place in a corner near the door that was as far away from the air conditioners as I could get.  Beside me was a door.  Where did that door lead, I thought?  I don't remember...  I felt drawn toward it.  Maybe to a place with no air conditioners.  I wanted to know what was behind it.  

Before I reached the door, a pair of arms with gnarled hands came out from underneath the door -- somehow bigger than the small crack underneath -- and grabbed both my legs.  I screamed in surprise and fear, and began yelling as the strong hands began to drag me underneath the door, through the tiny crack.    I heard evil cackling, and the hum of machinery.  Looking around in fear and panic, I saw an impossibly large room, filled with gears and pistons and cogs and other mechanical things.  I was floating in midair just in front of the door, as the room was not only impossibly high and wide, but also deep.    And a witch, somewhat like the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz, flew overhead.  Not aboard a broom, but floated around, in long, grayish robes, her face twisted and purely evil.  I began to fall into the room.  Into a twisted, chaotic collection of gears.  

Screaming and crying, I awoke in my mother's arms, in front of the television, in a rocking chair.  I was somewhere around four years old at the time.    I still remember that dream, vividly, over forty years later.