Run Darlin' Run

Nightmares and, Of Course, A Weird Blond Boy

"Well that's rather disgusting," I muttered, shivering as I awkwardly got to my feet. Somehow, during the invisible struggle, I had lost my shorts and spilt my cup of water sitting on my nightstand all over me. "Oh perfect," I said into the dark. "Half naked and soaking wet. I'm a real castle on a cloud here."

Deciding that sleeping was most certainly not going to happen anytime soon, I plucked my phone from its resting stop halfway under my pillow and stumbled blindly towards the bathroom. As graceful things go, I was one step below a top heavy, three legged horse. My grand journey forwards was quickly brought to a rousing stop viva text books. Or at least I hoped that was what it was. If not, then, well, I broke something.

"Ah hell," I muttered, now on my hands and knees. A carpet burn looked to be in my favor. Struggling to my feet once again, I flicked my hair off my forehead. "I'd say that was at least eight points. The fall had air and everything," I added, talking to myself in the dark. I really had to quit doing that.

Hands out stretched, I managed to make it to the bathroom without breaking my neck, thankfully. It was a feat of the ages, I tell you. Blind, my fingers ran along the wall groping for the light switch. It was a tiny thing, hidden amongst a pile of unclean clothes that sat on my counter top. I squinted, preparing to be assaulted by florescence, but darkness was what remained. 

"What is this," I asked, flicking the switch on and off again as if that would have made some sort of a difference. "Light bulbs, I curse you to the seventh circle of hell. You cost too much," I exclaimed, dejectedly dropping my hand and staring angrily into the dark.

Our house was a series of run down equipment and moldy fabric tied around busted pipes. As 'fixer uppers' went, ours pretty much took the cake. In the Before, as I called it, my father was always around to tweak what cried out and mend what clattered to the floor. But now? Now there was only me, who took wild guesses and called cheap shady plumbers who I was pretty sure dug through my underwear drawer before charging.

"Fine," I spat, spinning on my heel and tromping back into my dark room. "I guess I just won't take a shower."

It was too early for this. My head hurt, I was soaking wet, and to top it all off it was screaming lightning outside. Looks like the weather man wins again. Sighing, I used my phone as a lantern, hunting for a pair of pants and a not wet shirt.

I'd like to formally introduce you to my existence. It is grand. Grand like the public bathrooms in gas stations. As life went, mine was a series of unfortunate events and never quite fitting. I was always and most usually one grand step behind everyone else. You could probably make baseball fields with how much ground I seemed to lose in the game of life. If nothing else, I excelled in falling behind.

Halfway under my bed was an overly large caramel sweater that I assumed was pretty descent. It didn't smell too bad so I peeled off my freezing top and threw the sweater on over my head. It was pretty large so I dug around inside my sheets to pull out the short night shorts hiding there. By some stroke of luck they were dry so I quickly, if not a bit clumsily, threw them on and stumbled out into the hallway.

It was painfully obvious that sleep was to not be in my favor, not after that particular nightmare. I never really dreamed and whenever I happened to be graced with an over active brain, it was the same each and every time. My brain was cool like that, scaring me into early heart problems. We really had a fantastic relationship.

Sighing, I felt my way along the wall. The upstairs was small and needed a clean something awful. The lightning helped in illuminating that fact every so often, thunder telling me how I should probably vacuum. The hall panned off into a sort of lofty area. We had a crappy, bunny eared TV that never worked unless it was absolutely cloudless and even then it basically demanded blood sacrifices to play anything at all. Leaning up against the banister was a worn, brown leather love seat that my mom found at a garage sale back when my dad was around to pay our crappy mortgage. It smelled weird and had questionable stains on it but the purpose was served.