I dreamed I missed Christmas.

It was a dark day and I was living in what I call the old family house (since at some time or other during my life it has been occupied by both my uncles, my grandmother, my father, the guy who sold me my Bronco, and us)

(I still had my same roommate though...)

I was online as usual... and someone mentioned Christmas. I check out the date and find... It's Christmas Eve! I go harass my roommate, like Belmont in that Muppet movie The Christmas Toy. "I just found out something so wonderful, so extra-special fabulous... It's Christmas Eve!

So why am I stuck here in this apartment, when I should be at home with family opening presents?

I go outside. My car isn't there. Folks are working on the lawn, getting things ready (for what?).

How am I supposed to get home?

I don't want to miss Christmas!

My English teacher invited us up to his cliched huge and spooky mansion to prepare for our exams. The house was the size of Rhode Island; room after brightly decorated room. A bloodbath soon ensued.

My creepy teacher turned out to be a witch or something similar and he killed us all in elaborate and painful ways.

Note: I was wearing a shirt made of brass wires that encased glass cylinders. It was not a shirt at all.
Gnarly, no?

I've done murder.

I think that this might have been a continuation of a dream that I'd had a few nights ago, but perhaps not. I'd shot a man, I'd shot him for a reason which eludes me, but I remember that even though he was not a nice man, what he'd done to me was probably not so grave as to deserve murder.

I'd shot him in a Subway, an empty restaurant, I'd gone there to get a sandwich and he was sitting in a table by the window. My rage got the better of me, and I pulled out a gun and shot him in the head at point-blank range. I felt nothing when I did this other than rational "Okay, now that I've done this, how do I make sure I don't get caught?" I thought it might be a good idea to confuse the issue of how this man actually died, so I took a knife and made four deep cuts on his torso.

At that point, an acquaintance of mine from work (who I have a slight distaste for) walked in, saw what I'd just done. He seemed reasonably willing to help me in my predicament. We discussed moving the body from the restaurant to one of our cars, then finding a place to bury him where he wouldn't be found for a while, but the logistics of managing this without being seen and cleaning up the blood and brains that splattered the glaring white walls of the Subway brought that idea to a swift end.

In the end, we decided to leave the body where it lie. Getting rid of the gun, yes, I just wiped the damn thing off and left it in one of the trash bins by the door ("No, thank you!") My friend and I attempted to erase any evidence of our presence there (have you ever heard that the average murderer makes 25 mistakes, and the best of them will catch only five of these?), and split.

Guilt, remorse, did not hit me until days later. I remember realizing what happened like remembering a bad dream (which apparently, I was), freaking out not that I had done such a horrible thing, but that I had thought that I could get away with it. I remembered while I was driving around town, past the Subway, I wanted to look into the windows to see if the lifeless body still lay there, slumped over a half-eaten sandwich but I couldn't make myself look. I wanted to get a newspaper to see if there was a headline "Student Found Dead in Restaurant" but never got to do it, once again I was too scared. Once the body was discovered, it was only a matter of time until they found something I'd left behind...

Then it finally hit me that I'd actually killed a man in cold blood. That I'd gone against everything that I believe in and violated the one common thread...that it was wrong to end another life, for any reason. I was sick with guilt, and I woke up, for those few moments believing that all of this was real. Realizing it was impossible, I could breathe again. Relief.

I was sanding solitary in a closet, feeling around for a doorknob of some sort along the walls. When I finally touched the knob and turned it I found I had stumbled into my chemistry classroom. Several of my classmates were standing around the black countertops preparing for a lab of some sort. A bright blue sky could be seen through the windows and I walked further into the room. When my lab partner finally saw me she seemed to have a look of relief and came up to hug me. I was “down” with this of course but she seemed to have bad timing for my mouth was open when she came close and my right fang punctured her neck.

A stream of blood poured instantly into my mouth, shocking me a lot less than it should have. In fear of her seeing the blood and panicking I pulled her closer and began to drink as much of it as I could, but it was steaming out so fast that it was pouring down her neck. My thoughts should have been along the lines of “why the hell am I drinking her blood” but they ended up being more like “if she dies I’ll be in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

And of course at that moment someone saw me and screamed. It was my turn to panic, I let her go and her cold, pale body slumped a smile of pure ecstasy across her face. I looked around for an exit seeing only the four windows. I jumped through the closest one and then I found myself in dark wet alley. The sky was black and I felt cold inside. I walked out of the alley and found myself sitting in a Taco Bell lounge talking to some friends. As I talked it felt like my brain was arguing with itself and splitting off into different factions. I remember a distinct voice saying “The schism of our mind.” And then as I talked to my friends my voice began to change from low to high to deep to raspy and my person was confused.

I woke up talking to myself.

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