[Sundae]

This morning, I had a nightmare.
Background - I only call dreams a nightmare if I wake up trying to scream. Anything else is a scary dream. I have had dreams so scary the premise makes me shudder the next day - they're like personal horror books or films.

But a nightmare can be very mundane in the telling (an excuse!). It just seems real at the time, and if it was real life it would be terrifying, just in a non-Hollywood way.

So, last night I was talking to my bro, and my sister was standing in front of the living room window. I don't remember her talking (not surprising) she was just staring into the room.

All of a sudden, I can see a man outside the window. He has a big black hat on, like a fedora I guess, and his coat is drawn up to his nose. He's really slinking about, his movements are unnatural and the feeling is instantly malevolent. His eyes are glinting under his hat but his face can't be seen.

Immediately I know he is about to smash his way through the window. He starts knocking on the window, like someone who isn't sure we heard the doorbell, but he is no ordinary visitor. I'm trying to shout, to scream at my sister to get away from the window! Get away! He's going to come in!

But all I can manage out of my dream mouth - all I can ever manage - is a series of staccato sounds. Last night it was. "Hoo, hoo, hoo [ad nauseum]"

I partially woke myself up with the sound. I thought my Mum came and woke me up, but she appeared at my right side, and that's the side of the wall in the spare room. I came to knowing it was all a dream but my heart hammering. I assumed my crying out was in the dream too.

Nope.
Mum heard it all. She got up to check the window - her first thought for nocturnal disturbances is that it is the cat fighting. As she woke up she realised it was me. She got as far as my door and I shut up. Apparently it was 06.30. They get up at 06.45. So she went downstairs to put the kettle on rather than comfort me. Her line this morning? "Once I knew there wasn't a Red Indian on the warpath..."

Well, I am 36.

Honestly? I'd half forgotten it by the time I got up at 09.00, assuming it wa a dream in the middle of the night. I wish she hadn't told me I'm now too old to be comforted after a nigthmare.