When I was young, I had a dream about an animated film I had recently watched crossed with Gertrude Chandler Warner's Boxcar Children series. I woke up terrified.
I went to my parent's room crying because of my horrible nightmare, and pulled out a sleeping bag from under their bed (they had put these here for just that purpose). But it wasn't enough just to be in my parents' presence, not when the cartoon haunted me every time I closed my eyes. No, I'm ashamed to say I woke my mother up and made her hold my hand.
Fast-forward I-don't-know-how-many-years. I'm sleeping soundly in my bed, dreaming of a haunted house with a room full of flies and a madwoman locked in the closet. From my wall, a mounted headless baby doll stares at me (as best as it can without a head).
I wake up that morning totally unfazed. I think it has something to do with the doll: Coretta Caroline Kingsley III (There was no Coretta Caroline Kingsley I or II, but I liked the way the numeral made the name sound stately and important). I purchased Coretta at a yard sale in the summer. When Halloween rolled around, I knew she would make a perfect accessory to my costume, so I stripped all her clothes off and tried to bash her head in a little bit, but ended up knocking the whole thing off.
I like it when Coretta stares at me. Whenever I feel afraid, I look at her and I am reminded that I've been sleeping with a headless doll on my wall for the past few years, so nothing can scare me anymore. Then I go to sleep. My mother sees the doll as a morbid representation of teenage angst, and is therefore strongly opposed, but she lets me do what I want for the most part.
Now it's my brothers turn to be afraid. He comes into my room every night asking if I'll sit with him until he falls asleep (actually, he really just hovers in the doorway. I think Coretta scares him). What shocks me is how insensitive I am when he asks for my help.
"You're fine," I tell him heartlessly. "Go back to bed."
I don't know why I am like this. I should be more sympathetic, since when I was his age I refused to go to sleep if there was a styling head in my closet. I should sit with him and cuddle him and stroke his head until he feels okay.
But I don't. Why I don't, I have no idea. It's like when an amputee gets a prosthetic leg, and then her friend's leg gets bitten off by a shark and she proceeds to laugh at her friend for not being able to walk. I'm really that heartless. Has Coretta stolen my soul?
Maybe. Or maybe I'm just subconsciously trying to force my brother to cross the threshold by himself, because once you realize that you don't need someone holding your hand, you're ready to fly. I know that sounds like a cat poster, but it's totally legit.
Way back when when it was me who refused to go down to the basement by myself, my brothers and I devised a test. We put a plastic blue stick from a playset down at the very furthest end of the basement, and then one at a time we would go down by ourselves to go get the stick and bring it back upstairs, triumphant.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I was never actually brave enough to go downstairs and get the blue stick. The really pathetic thing is that the basement wasn't even that scary. It wasn't like one of those dark, creepy, unfinished basements. It was a nice place to be, with carpet and couches and crap.
Anyway, both my brothers successfully went down and were able to fetch the blue stick by themselves. Afterward, whenever they were afraid to do something I'd say, "You can do it! You're bluestick brave!" despite not being actually bluestick brave myself.
On one occasion, I remember being terrified to go do some ridiculously easy mundane task, and my little brother saying to me, "You can do it! You're bluestick brave!" at which point I burst into tears and admitted my failure.
Well now, I'm fine. It's like I needed proof that yes, in fact, I actually was bluestick brave. The blue stick just happened to be a dead babydoll.
Take that, Nightmares!
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