You're not Raquel Welch

They are coming again! I try hiding in a dark place, but they find me. They want to take me upstairs to where the worst form of evil lives. The elderly woman must be a witch who embodies evil. She feeds on people she lures into this house. Why did I listen to her invitation? The house in slightly run down. Creeks, groans, feeling you are being watched accompany your every move. It is a three-story structure with her occupying the top floor. She has helpers to get you upstairs for her to feed. I discover I am not the only one lured here. Out of nowhere comes a woman who is running beside me.

“Help me! I am trapped in a dream, and now you’re here, too. I keep ending up here after I go to sleep. I cannot escape till she kills me. Run!”

I run with her, but as we round a corner, we run right into the captor’s arms. “Welcome back, lady. She waits for both of you. She is hungry! Take them upstairs to the master.

Once we arrive upstairs, we see the woman sitting on the bed. The question comes, does an uglier human being exist? She is obese to where her pink muumuu cannot cover everything. The stink is atrocious and nauseating. Red racetracks cross her eyes around the iris. She looks like a grandmother who took LSD. The servants push the woman toward her. The woman screams out of control. She screams at me to run, but the servants tighten their grip on me. I watch as they push the woman toward the witch on the bed. Muscles strain, causing the muumuu to stretch so it contains the bulging moving body. By some miracle, she stands up. We are grossed out from places where skin shrank away from muscle and bone.

Our ears go deaf from the shriek of her voice. “Looking at my beautiful skin? Don’t worry! When I tear the life from you, my body will be beautiful again. Servants, bring me the woman.”

The servants shoved her forward as she fought to stay away. But the evil woman leaned forward and began sucking the life from the woman. You can see the witch sucking right into the heart. The woman screamed, trying to get her to stop.

While I struggled, a voice in my head said, “Grab her hand and yell, wake up!”

“What? Who said that?”

“Shut up and do it now!”

Every muscle in my body lurches forward. The surprise movement caught the servants off guard, allowing me to surge forward. My hand grabbed the woman’s hand. I felt the power of the evil coming for me to drain my life force. As I grab woman’s hand, I screamed, “Wake up!”

Our bodies became rigid as a strange power united us, then separated us and hurtling us toward different lights. I hear screams of profanity following us as we left the house. Returning to my body, I slammed down on my bed. Surely my wife heard me screaming and slamming into the bed. She quietly snores and twitches in the bed.

I cannot sleep. How could this be real? Sure, I’ve had nightmares, but this one seemed to be alive and dangerous. Had the woman been there before? Did the evil woman use any life force from the woman to restore her looks and life, if she had been there before?? This cannot be real. Still sweating, I lay down and try to close my eyes. I repeat to myself that what happened in my dreams wasn’t real, but just a nightmare.

A voice cackles in my head. “You escaped this time, but one night you will be mine. Sleep well, you fool. I bolt upright in my bed. This wakes my wife. Groggy and uncoordinated from waking up, she mumbles to me, “Are you ok?”

How do I explain to her that an obese evil witch in a muumuu tried to suck the life from me, but we escaped this time? Not only that, but she promises to get me next time.” I decided silence is the great virtue. “Go back to sleep, dear. Everything is fine.”

The next question is, how will I sleep? While I am plotting, the sandman sneaks in and sends me to never land. With great relief, that brings a deep sleep. The alarm wakes me up. My wife is sitting on the end of the bed looking at me.

“Will you tell me what happened last night? You tossed and turned, yelled in your sleep, and beat up my pillow. This morning, when the alarm goes off, you laugh hysterically. What happened?”

“Nothing dear. I had strange dreams, that’s all.”

“Do you want to tell me about them?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Help will come to you if you ask. I’ve got to get ready for work. I’ll call you during the day to check on you. Get moving before you’re late for work.”

“How do you describe a nightmare that seems fake, or a creation of my deep subconscious to someone? Wife, a gigantic woman, probably a witch, wearing a muumuu who chased me and a woman around trying to suck out my soul. No, I don’t need counseling.”

I arrive at work and see a clip from the news from last night. There is the woman I helped escape, found dead in the park late last night. She appeared to suffer from strangulation. Anyone with information, please contact the police. I wake up with people gently slapping my face, helping me wake up.

“Are you ok?” asked a colleague.

“What happened?”

“You squeaked, gasped and passed out. We thought you were dead.”

With my eyes glued to the T.V. I feel responsible for her death. I got her out, but apparently she went to sleep when she returned to bed. How do I stay awake forever? I can only hope the voice that saved me will do it again. It’s one of the few times I have prayed for the workday to go by slowly, but it ends too soon.

When I arrive home and enter through the front the door, I notice my wife looking at me. It’s not unusual for my wife to look at me, but it’s the look she has on her face. Her loving eyes, along with a smile full of compassion, come across her face. “Are you ok? You were so spooked in the middle of the night. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what happened?”

“It was nothing but a stupid nightmare. I’ll be fine.”

“Can you share the details with me? I bet together we can solve this.”

“Thanks but, no thanks. I’d rather just move on from it.”

“Let me tell you a story. It happened when I was just a child. My father had this nightmare where this fat ugly woman would kidnap people to suck the life from them.”

I spit out the coffee I just sipped that goes across the room. “What!”

“You heard me. She captured several people this one night, my father included. He fought but couldn’t escape. Grabbing my father by the hair, a man said, “We can fight back. This is a dream. Imagine a weapon or a person, something that we can use to fight and escape with the rest of us.” Looking around, my father saw many people, from very young to old, fighting and struggling with her servants. A young woman cried for someone to help her.”

“When I am in a nightmare, I can fight back?”

“Yes, because it’s a dream, you can create anything you want. In my father’s case, he dreamed he had a burning torch. The man who spoke to him did the same thing. They told the others to dream they were holding a torch.”

“This sounds like an old-fashioned horror movie.”

“How do you know those are not based on truth? My father helped burned the house to the ground. When the house collapsed in on itself, a horrible demon exploded from the flames.” My father thought that the evil woman was destroyed. Apparently she has returned, if I’m right.”

“Someone spoke to me while I was there telling me to escape.”

“Yes, I did.”

You cannot always choose how you land when you faint, but I ended flat on my back. For the second time today, soft slaps had me nodding awake. “What do you mean,” Yes, I did.”

“I spoke to you. I cannot come to where you are, but in my dreams, I can see you and talk to you.”

Walking in a circle, waving arms is shock and frustration, I finally stopped. “You can see me in my dreams?”

“Yes, I can. The several people who helped my father kill the woman lived close by, just like you and the woman you tried to save. I’m sorry she didn’t make it. The people, along with my father, who lived close by with their children, studied dreams and what was possible. That’s when I realized what happened to you when you talked in your sleep last night.”

“So you can see my dreams.”

“Yes, I can, to a degree. I love the dreams where you take me in your arms and, well, you know. Haven’t you noticed, during dreams of intimacy, that sometimes I talk to you and surprise you in your dreams by changing your approach?”

“I, uh, I don’t know what to say. Most of the time, I don’t remember my dreams. How can you be a part of something I can’t remember?”

Walking up to me with a sly smile, she touched my chest, “You can remember the important ones. By the way, Raquel Welch is, in reality, out of your league.”

“Tonight will be interesting. Maybe she is done with me.”

“She knows how to find you. She heard my call to wake up. We will be safe when she is dead.”

While we held hands, we went over plans for the evening one more time. “The servants are living dead and must burn to die. The chief weapon is fire. Ask for fire.” After rehearsing one more time, we turned their lights off and went to bed.

It didn’t take long for something to happen. My wife felt me being pulled away. She grabbed for me, but I had already left my body. She attempted to reach me in her dreams, but an unseen force prevented her from doing so.

“Hello my sweet! I have never met you, but I remember your wife’s father. Now she gets to watch her husband die like her father watched me die. You won’t burn, but will serve me for eternity.” My wife watched in horror as her husband fought the servants who pushed him toward the evil woman. A small child cried as the woman stood to suck his life out.

"Everyone listen! We are in a dream. We can call for weapons to fight her. Call for burning torches. Throw them at the bed. Hurry, before she kills the child.” After a moment of thinking, several people called for and hurled torches at the evil woman and the bed. She screamed and tried to throw them back. Her servants, in trying to put out the torches, caught fire themselves. Two women ran to grab the child. The evil woman sent a spell at all the people, knocking them down.

Someone said, “She’s a witch! She’s using curses!” Several people, after getting up from the floor, tried to fire again. This time, she called for water to drench the flames. Everyone fought with whatever they could think of except one man. He knelt on the floor and concentrated. He called out a name no one could understand. There came explosions, wind, and fire as flames swirled around the room. You could see someone forming in the middle of the flames.

The witch screamed and shot bolts of lightning into the flames, which passed harmlessly through. Formed fully in the flames, the figure waved his hands and calmed to flames and wind. With a word spoken, he sent away the witch’s efforts at killing him.

“Well, witch, we meet again. First things first. This man’s wife is being attacked by your servants at their home.” Clapping his hands and thrusting them into the air, the swirling air brought back the witch’s servants. Swirling, flaming winds circled around all the servants. The winds closed the flames on them, which consumed them and turned them into a pile of dust.

The witch pointed at the wizard. “Wizard, you may win this time, but I’ll be back. She looked at me. “I’ll curse your family for generations to come. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Not true, witch!” Other wizards entered the room, showing an anger bordering on murder. They surrounded her on her bed and chanted until a cage appeared. Then, with circular gestures by all of their hands, they gave a spell spoken together. The wizards swept the witch up and cast her into the cage.

“Witches answered your call for help, but unfortunately, they fled before reaching you. Now it’s time for you to leave.” Four wizards chanted a spell that brought a cage and sent it into the air above the bed. Winds came that sucked the witch into the cage. Everyone covered their ears and ducked as a boom filled the room. With Blood-curdling screams, the witch struggled against the cage. The cage containing the witch vanished.

The wizard looked at the young boy. “It’s time for you to wake up at home.” The young boy vanished from the room. Looking at the remaining people, the wizard said, I want you to realize you can control the direction of your dreams. A monster attacked a person I know. He woke up afraid. He became angry and went back to that dream and killed the monster. Never be afraid to fall asleep. Now go home. Everyone vanished except for me.

The wizard looked at me and said,” Well, sir, you have played a major part in banishing a powerful witch. All the wizards that came have lost people in their cities to her. Thank you! Your wife is most eager to talk to you. I appeared on our bed next to my wife.

We hugged as tight as we could. My wife cuddled against me and said. Let’s go to sleep. Why don’t you dream that I’m actually Raquel Welch?