Escaped Nightmares!
By Valerie L. Egar
Once
upon a time, an old wizard worked his magic to trap all the nightmares in the
world. Every scary dream beast was
rounded up and locked in a sturdy box. The wizard jammed anxiety dreams— ones
in which children and adults dreamed they had exams for courses they’d never
taken or were about to go on stage to recite lines they’d never learned— into
pottery jars and corked the tops so they couldn’t escape. Dreams about falling,
being chased, losing something precious— the wizard tracked each one down,
lassoed it and locked it up.
The
wizard took the nightmares he’d captured and hid them in a dark cave. Locked
boxes, corked jars— the wizard filled the cave with hundreds. He placed a large
boulder in front of the cave’s opening and cemented it in place, so the
nightmares would be contained for all eternity.
Thousands of years
passed and people dreamed only happy dreams when they fell asleep, but one day,
two explorers hiking through the mountains came upon the boulder. In the passage of time, the cement holding
the boulder to the cave’s opening had given way. With rain and snow, the
erosion of earth, the boulder had moved enough to show the cave’s entrance.
They pried the
boulder aside and into the cave they went. Breaking the boxes and jars open, the
explorers were frightened by a terrible howl. All the nightmares, free at last,
flew out of the cave. Only then did the explorers see the inscription the
wizard had written on the wall in every language known to man: Nightmare Cemetery.
Do not disturb!
People all over
the world tossed and turned when they went to sleep that night! Word spread
that explorers had unleashed ancient nightmares that had been locked away. No one knew what to do.
“Catch them again
and lock them away!” people said, but no one knew the ancient spell the wizard
used to corral the nasty dreams. Besides, no waking person could see them. They
were wisps and changed shape quickly. Catching them was impossible. A nightmare
might be the sound of footsteps running behind a person, coming closer, closer
one minute and then turn into a spiral staircase with slippery steps climbing
high into the sky the next.
“Let’s give them a
part of the world to call their own— an unpeopled island, a remote mountain,”
was another suggestion. A committee of wise women spoke to the nightmares in dream time and
asked whether they might agree to live in a place away from people. The nightmares laughed. “Without people, we
wouldn’t exist at all. We aren’t going anywhere.”
Round
and round the arguments went with people getting less and less sleep every
night. Businesses sold charms against
nightmares, but still the nightmares came. People wrote advice— sleep with your
window open and they escape your room. Sleep with your window closed tight so
they don’t come in. Never eat chili
after eight o’clock. Eat chocolate before you sleep. (Everyone loved that idea,
whether it kept nightmares at bay or not.)
No
matter what people did, the nightmares continued to trouble sleep.
“Maybe
they’re just hungry,” a child said.
Eyebrows
raised. People frowned. “What?”
“They’re
hungry. I feed them all the time and they don’t bother me at all. I have good dreams.”
“What
do you feed a nightmare?” people wondered and imagined awful things— worms and
snakes, monsters.
“Laughter.
When they’re happy, they go to sleep. And they like long walks and sunshine.
Drawing pictures. Flowers.”
“Nightmares like
nice things?” Everyone was surprised.
People started
feeding the nightmares by talking long walks. Gardening. Laughing out loud.
Dancing. Being truthful. The nightmares weren’t hungry at night anymore and
they slept, allowing people to sleep well, too.
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