345 AM: I have insomnia. So to cure it, I just ate half a bag of potato chips. Yes, potato chips can cure insomnia unless they cause it. And these were healthy chips, lots of grease but low salt. But I’m still going to have to worry about nightmares, when I finally do sleep. And the nightmares are going to be humdingers, Halloween nightmares, that is.
415 AM: I drift off and stumble into my dreams where:
I’m being chased by a gaggle of pumpkins. I’m running down the street, our street. I run across yards, behind houses, jump fences, pumpkins follow me everywhere. They are drooling, hungry, ravenous and they are bow-legged!
I dream about life after death. I’m in some ethereal miasma, out looking for loved ones… family… friends… frenemies. I worry what they will be wearing. I hate shrouds and ghoulish gray. I feel a draft. There’s a hole in the seat of the tatters I am wearing. My butt is showing, at
least what is left of it.
The dream continues. I’m still looking, groping, staggering through fog, hoping I don’t run into my deceased mother. She’s going to give me Hell. Like she always did, about money, housework, her cats, and all the potato chips I just ate.
I’m home. I think there’s a goblin under the dining room table. How did it get under there? Now it’s making a ruckus. It’s going to wake the dead. I see it now…the goblin…but it’s just my dog. I look again. My dog is the goblin. Now it’s chewing on a bone…my leg bone.
I hear noises in the kitchen. Cockroaches are scurrying, it looks like they are running in tandem. They are very busy…having sex. Thank god they’re not bats. I look for bug spray, but they’re way too big for that. They are the size of rats. Where is a baseball bat when you need one?
I see a rat. It’s got buck teeth and big, bloodshot eyes. And fleas, very big fleas. It’s using a fly swatter to kill them. Maybe I should distract it with some candy corn. Maybe it will go away if it has a belly ache or maybe it will just get torpid, and lay there passing gas… like me from all those potato chips I ate.
The dreams are coming to an end. But I’m not alone. I’m sleeping with something big and hairy… a werewolf? The werewolf has a pot belly and bad breath. But no buck teeth. I watch its rotund belly heave up and down with each breath. And then I realize, it’s only my significant other.
I poke him. No response. I poke again and ask, “When did you manage to grow all that hair?” But he just snorts and lays there. Minutes drag on. I poke him really hard. He finally stirs. And then I hear him growl, “Why the Hell can’t you just sleep at night like a normal person?”