In Which Amy Finds the Lighter Side... (Myspace Blog)

The nightmare was one of those where I wake up with a jerk, adrenaline pumping. 'Creepy Guy' had hypnotized me and kidnapped me and thrown me into an oubliette, and I knew I was going to die because he wanted to wear my skin, and he was going to skin me alive, and I couldn't get out. An hour later, after writing it all down, thinking about it, and being grateful that it was "only a dream", I was still shaky. Two hours later, sitting in Chemistry, I was struggling to write because I was STILL shaky. And three hours later, sitting in English, the instructor brings in the frog. It is a skinned frog. Skinned and stuffed. It is holding a beer bottle as if it were guzzling it and it has been covered with shellac and I cannot imagine how on earth she can possible stand to touch it. She has named it Fred. I am creepily reminded of my dream... and instantly aware of the fact that my nightmare, at least in part, has come true for this frog. I wonder if 'Creepy Guy' would have shellacked me. She wants us to write about Fred- something funny. She almost sets the frog in front of me and I recoil, then explain the dream to her and the class. They stare at me blankly - maybe I am the ONLY person who has nightmares like this. But she does not set it in front of me after all. I am glad. I have to work to be funny, because I do not see anything funny about this frog... and then the glimmer appears. This is what I write: "I imagine him at a bar - Western. He needs a cowboy hat and chaps. He has been riding hard all day - Ooo... an outlaw! Yeah, shooting innocent women and children. He sidles up to the bar after slamming back the swinging doors. His spurs click as he walks with the bowfoot swagger. "Gimmie whiskey - the whole bottle!" His clothes and skin are brown from the dirt of the trail. He tips the bottle back and guzzles it, draining it dry then slamming it down like a gunshot - he has 2 pistols, 1 at each hip, slung low. He clinks to the poker table and pushes his way in, growling. The cantina girls do not approach, but he grabs the nearest and pulls her down onto his lap - her eyes are wide with fear. He growls to be dealt in. He cheats, a barfight erupts - he throws the cantina girl to the floor to fight." Not bad humour for such a crappy nightmare.