My Visionary Nightmares: Mind and Life Chapter 1

It was a dark and dismal day. Well, it was raining outside anyway. It wasn’t the sort of rain you could look up at and say with a heavy sigh, “oh well, I’ll just fetch a warm jacket.”, it was the sort of rain that clanked hard against everything in sight, and not even a strong umbrella could protect you.

The sort that made you utterly miserable.

However, Sam (as she liked to be called) didn’t need the rain to make her miserable. Today was when her sadness would creep up on her; the sort of nightmare-ish day that nobody wants to face, let alone go through it...

...Today she had to face this sort of day, for the funeral of her brother had dawned.

Sam woke up from her bad dream; the sort of dream where you run through a crowd spotting the person you love and you run and run to catch up with that person, panting for breath, until...The person vanishes, almost camouflages into the street. The sort of dream where you slow down to a halt and wonder why the person would disappear, even though you called them over and over again.

The sort of dream that made you think: What’s the point of chasing after the person if I couldn’t even cling onto them in reality?

Sighing, she rolled over to face her pink alarm clock. Ever since Mickey had died, she had got out all of her forgotten unwanted presents that Mickey had given her at the back of the wardrobe. Sam was a complete devotee to tomboy styles- she had a blue room, completely plastered with posters of chameleons and other creepy insects. Her mother told her not to stick things on the walls, but she kept on doing it against her mother’s wishes. The presents that Mickey gave her were all either pink, fluffy, girly or cute. She hated Mickey for that, as her mother backed up Mickey’s presents with two thumbs up. Feeling a great big stab of guilt, Sam had spread all of Mickey’s presents around the room: the pink alarm clock, the giant purple teddy (which now rested at the end of her gecko patterned bed cover), the poster of three cute poodles and lastly a make up case which contained lip glosses, blushers, eye shadows, mascara, eye and lip liner all of the colours possible. Sam didn’t use the make up case, but she kept it on her desk, a sort of memorial to Mickey.

Her clock said 6:15. Her mother rapped on her door, and, without waiting for Sam’s call first, she briskly marched into her room.

“Samantha, dear? Are you awake?”

“You could’ve waited for my reply, y’know.” grunted Sam, “Oh, and I’ve told you many times before, I’d like to be called Sam!”

Her mother frowned.

“I really don’t care, Samantha. I am not having you walk this Earth with the name of a boy. And as I’ve told you before madam, do not use abbreviations. They are so...so...Common.” she decided.

Sam threw the duvet off of her, startling her Mother.

“Sexist cow...” she muttered. But not quietly enough.

“Samantha! Don’t you dare call me a cow! You have no right!” she stormed.

“Don’t forget sexist.” she replied.

“Just to say Sam is a boy’s name is not sexist, dear, it is fact. Me a cow, indeed!” she scoffed.

“Mickey called you a cow.”

Her mother froze at this comment. It looked as if she was trying to scrunch herself up into a tiny ball.

“Yes, but I made sure he did not call me a cow again--”

“By slapping him.” interrupted Sam.

“And,” continued her mother, ignoring Sam’s comment, even if it was true. “Mickey was a bad influence. It does not give you the right to call me a cow, too!” she said.

“Don’t you dare call Mickey a bad influence!” screamed Sam from her en suite bathroom. Sam locked the door tight as her mother raced up to her, possibly about to shout back at her. “He wasn’t bad! He wasn’t!!!” wept Sam, kneeling on the tiles rocking backwards and forwards. She heard her mother sigh.

“No, dear, he was not, you mean. I’m so sorry...Please come out. I know it is a hard time, but please understand that the rules still apply...”

Sam rose to her feet, trying to compose herself. She unlocked the door and opened it. Her mother was sitting on her bed, staring at the purple teddy on Sam’s bed. She startled, hardly expecting Sam to come out.

“You corrected me, didn’t you?” Sam held her breath. “You...You still believe that Mickey was a bad influence?”

Her mother stiffened, even ignoring the “mistake” Sam had made.

“Yes. Yes I do.”

A few tears trickled down Sam’s face.

“No he wasn’t. He was a brilliant brother, until you took the left turning.”

And with that, Sam slowly walked into her bathroom, locked the door, sat in the bath and cried.

She awoke from her nightmares with a sharp pain in her neck. Must have been because I fell asleep in the bath, she thought. She peeled her sore neck away from the hard plastic and shook her black hair like a dog would if it were wet.

Then she remembered. The thought hit her like a brick being thrown in her face.

No...She can’t have. Impossible. Although she knew her mother was likely to be mad at her after the argument that they had had, Sam knew her mother wouldn’t let her sleep through her own brother’s funeral, surely...

She shakily stood up and unlocked the door. Her room was left untouched, apart from the bed still wasn’t made. Her alarm said 3:00 pm.

No. Surely not. Sam couldn’t have missed the funeral! She legged it downstairs, tripping on one of her mother’s lilac slippers that lay on the bottom step. She crashed to the wooden floor flat on her face. Sam urgently rose to her feet and rubbed her knees which were spouting thick scarlet blood. Sam opened the kitchen door with a flourish. In the kitchen was a group of relatives and friends of Mickey, some of which were crying, some were attacking the buffet hungrily like mourning was a starving chore.

The room was silenced of the crying and the munching. They all turned to look at Sam, about to all queue up to give her their sympathy.

Sam ignored the attention, although naturally she would have wanted the ground to swallow her whole. Her eyes darted past their Nan, Mickey’s best friends Paul and Lindsey until she spotted her mother standing at the back of the room, nursing a glass of Vodka. She felt Sam’s sad green eyes burn the back of her neck like a laser, so she turned and walked cautiously up to her, the whole room looking at them as if they were royalty. Sam gulped back a sob which was threatening to choke her.

“I missed Mickey’s funeral, didn’t I?” Sam muttered. Her mother sadly nodded although it looked as if she was trying to say otherwise.

“Yes, dear, you did.”

“So...You left me to sleep?”

Her mother lowered her empty grey eyes to the floor. She shifted her black heels nervously about on the kitchen tiles.

“Yes. Yes I did. I...I did not want to disturb your sleep, and... and... I did not think it was best for you to go. After all, you went through all that horror and you are only twelve, so I decided that--”

“You decided. You decided whether I was welcome to the funeral or not. He is my brother, Mum! How the fuck do you think I feel enough as it is? Yes, the horror of the accident still haunts my mind every minute, but I needed to properly say goodbye to Mickey...” Sam shouted, great big teardrops dripping down her already sodden cheeks. Blood trickled down her legs. Her mother walked forward to comfort Sam, but Sam took a step back, steadying herself on the kitchen counter.

“No. Leave me alone! How could you! It’s your fault he’s dead in the first place!” she announced, “If you’d actually listened to Mickey, then we would have still been a happy family; sitting round the table tucking into a roast dinner. Instead you wrongly assumed- as usual -that you were right, and so you went left! I HATE YOU!” Sam screamed at the top of her lungs. Her mother couldn’t stand Sam’s accusations any longer. She lifted her Vodka bottle and lunged forward towards Sam. Elsie, Sam and Mickey’s grandmother, ran forward and held Sam’s mother back. Luckily her mother didn’t overpower them, and so Sam, still sodden, sweaty and stained with blood from her accident on the staircase, ran upstairs to the sanctuary of her bedroom.

Sam had been in her bedroom for at least four hours now. She opened her heavy eyes and shakily moved towards her door. She turned the knob and opened the door slightly, just enough so Sam could peer out into the dark corridor.

The coast was clear. Thank God.

She tip toed carefully down the stairs and wandered into the kitchen. The buffet had been cleared away. Sam opened the freezer and took out a microwave mini pizza and then placed it into the microwave, watching it spin around and around...It was almost hypnotic, she thought.

But not hypnotic enough to not know that someone was standing behind her. The pizza stopped abruptly with a ping, but Sam didn’t bother opening the door. Her eyes were wide as saucers, her face was sweating with fear. She turned around to find that the person was...

“...Mickey?” she whispered into the face of her brother. He didn’t say anything, but he grinned. Then, like a bolt of lightening, his face showed a mass of blood and bruises on his face. His mouth opened to a wide O shape, and he began howling; a howl so mournful and desperate it made Sam’s skin crawl with anxiety.

Mickey made a grab for her, growling like a wolf. Sam legged it for the kitchen door, but she was too late. She felt his bloody hands scrape away at her legs, pulling her closer and closer towards him.

“What do you want, Mickey?” Sam screeched at the top of her lungs. “Your dead now, leave me alone!”

“But you want me back, don’t you?” Mickey said, scarily calm. “Don’t worry, Samantha, I’m here now. Don’t be afraid”.....

...And then Sam woke up sweating with fright. Her eyes glanced at her alarm clock. Two in the morning. Sam laid her head back on her sodden pillow, trying to calm herself down. She certainly didn’t want to go back to sleep, not after that nightmare! However, she didn’t want to risk going downstairs, either.

After much consultation with her brain, she decided to simply read a book.

Not a scary book, mind.