Stacy's Mom, the Crazy Bitch in a Short Skirt/Long Jacket

Apparently, I'm "off probation." You'd think, after 2.5 years, a 3-month probationary period was a little...em...superfluous. And how the hell did I end up the one on probation? I'm not the one with idempotency issues...

Main Entry:night terror
Function:noun
Date:1896
: a sudden awakening in dazed terror that occurs in children during slow-wave sleep, is often preceded by a sudden shrill cry uttered in sleep, and is not remembered when the child awakes —usually used in plural.

I saw my dream angel last night. A dream angel is, of course, the angel that guards your sleep to ensure you have pleasant dreams. It is the dream angel's responsibility to sprinkle your sleep with thoughts of peace and contentment while simultaneously holding back things that go bump in the night.

In a perfect world, this ambient guardian is not seen, more's the pity because they are beautiful, diaphanous creatures rather like the wings of a dragonfly. They desire to maintain a wide perimeter in which the sleeper is free to wander in a dream-like state without constraint. Sometimes, though, the battle with Old Hag is fierce and the perimeter closes in and the sleeper tosses and turns a bit more than is appropriate for beauty rest. And on rare occasion, when the dream is still pleasant but the perimeter seriously compressed, the dreamer catches a glimpse of her dream angel.

Last night was such a night. I dreamt a monkey was sitting on an old wooden desk typing on a pica typewriter. He had the most beautiful fingers and they were rapidly striking keys while the monkey muttered "You've GOT to be kidding me! Not high def? Are you fucking kidding me??"

There was a lamp casting a golden glow upon the desk and the lamp was plugged into an outlet that was not actually part of any existing wall that I could see. And just beyond the outlet was the dream angel.

There was also a pile of fluffy black and white feathers and every so often the monkey would put a finger to the corner of his eye like he was fighting sleep, shake his head in (mild) irritation, then get up from the desk and go jump on the pile of feathers. Then he would go sit back down on the desk and go back to typing and muttering with a feather or two stuck to his...fur.

The Grim Reaper was also there, but there wasn't any sense of angst over the presence of this harbinger of doom. In fact, Mr. Reaper and the monkey were having quite a pleasant little argument - the monkey was saying, "What do you mean, it's time? It isn't time. I haven't written the code for that feature yet!" And Grim was saying, "Dude, do you not see the scythe? You think a line of code is gonna stop the clock?" And the monkey was looking at Death with a smile on his face and saying, "Well, not to seem like an arrogant prick, but...yes! If the code's not right, I guarantee, GUARANTEE, time WILL stop and there isn't a fuckin' thing you or anybody else can do about it." And Death grumbled a little under his spectoral breath, "Stupid canadian." And the monkey responded, "What's that?" And Death replied, "You've got a...feather...stuck to your chin."

And all the while, the dream angel was sprinkling dreamdust with one hand and shooting a compound bow at some thing with the other.

Then Death tells the monkey to 'hurry up and write the fucking code.' And the monkey replies a bit snarky, "Don't rush me, I'm a monkey." So Death moves a little off to the side, leans against the not-wall and impatiently examines his very long nails.

The thing disarms the angel and the angel, without missing a beat, lowers her slender arm and brings it back up with a semi-automatic AK47 and starts blasting away, and the monkey takes notice and says, "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!" And Death snaps his fingers and says, "Yo! Monkey-boy! Focus!" And the monkey looks at Death, takes off his glasses, gets off the table and goes to get a glass of water. He puts the glass to his lips, lowers it without sipping, looks off into space, raises the glass, holds it, takes the tiniest sip ever, walks back to the table, and holds the glass out to Death and says, "Here, hold this." And Death, with a look of incredulity and a shake of his head, does.

The dream angel is getting a little irritated now, the night terror is turning out to be a bit of a bully and she's having some trouble subduing him. She's still sprinkling dreamdust, but she's swirling all around in a very Laura Croft-like fashion and running up the not-wall and not-roof and throwing fighting stars that have sayings on them, sayings like YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL TODAY and YOU ARE AN AMAZING PERSON and (my favorite) WHAT CRIMPLE? And the thing is starting to make barely audible fierce growly noises, and Death is still holding the glass but is clearly losing patience, and the monkey looks up for about four seconds and the lamplight gets fiercely bright and the monkey starts rapidly typing, his gorgeous fingers rapping confidently and energetically and Death steps away from the wall and the angel keeps throwing stars but is now watching Monkey with a smile on her beautiful face and there is suddenly an ENTER key on the pica typewriter and the monkey poises his index finger just above it, then with all the confidence of a monkey who knows he's just solved the problem, he hits ENTER, takes the glass from Death and goes to sleep in the pile of black and white feathers.

And the angel throws one last star, pulls the plug from the not-wall outlet and whispers ever-so-softly to the pile of feathers, "Time to wake up, fluff!"