I think I have a new character coming out of my head, and let me tell you, he is not a nice one.
Last night I had two nightmares. The first one was one of those where you are scared not from anything specific, but because you are suddenly overwhelmed in a swirl of chaotic madness. I woke up with a shout, and a deep sense of someone lurking. That was at 4:30 am. God only knows why I didn’t wake up Teri or Trevor. I got up to pee, and check the house. I’d been sleeping in a awkward position (in fact, I’ve been sleeping poorly this whole week), so I chalked it up to should/back pain as the cause, and went back to sleep.
The second one was after I turned off the 6:30 alarm, and went back to sleep. I dreamed we owned an older house. I think it was situated on the end of the block where we lived as kids in Fresno (on San Carlos Street). The house was dirty, old, and grey, the color of ancient wood bleached by the sun. I was in the bedroom unpacking stuff when Trevor came in the room shouting about the goldfish. I ran into the hallway, and found myself up to my ankles in water. I started grabbing fish, and putting them back in their travel bag, when I noticed the hose. Someone had taken a garden house from outside, pushed the end though the window into the hallway, and turned it on full blast. I asked Trevor if he had done this, and he apologized. Then I yelled at him to run and turn it off.
It was when I was going out the front door that I saw the man. He was young (in his mid 20s) with shoulder length or longer straight blonde hair. His face was long and thin, his look severe as if he was unhappy about something that was preoccupying his thoughts. He was rolling across our back lawn in roller blades, clearly on our property. He looked to be about 6 feet tall or taller, but it was hard to tell because of the blades on his feet. He circled around the house checking us out and dodging all the moving boxes laying around. Then he rolled back to a trail heading off from the rear of our lot. I asked Trevor if this was the person who put the hose in the window, and he nodded his head saying that the man had threatened to beat him up if he said anything.
Like I said, not a nice guy.
The thing is, I don’t know who this guy is. Yet. I had a story idea this week, a type of blind justice based upon a reformed criminal that can see the ghosts caused by other’s crimes, but this guy doesn’t seem to fill that part. For one thing he was clearly comfortable with what he was doing, as in having no emotional understanding of the creepiness of his actions. This was not “fun” but dead earnest actions to accomplish something. Perhaps to try and move us off something he thought he owned, like the house. This is more in keeping with a antagonist then a protagonist, but I don’t know. He is not a nice character, and I don’t fancy writing about him. But I bet I will anyway.