Stuart Miller was not a complicated man, in his opinion, during what he suspected, sometimes even hoped, were the last of his twilight moments.
He simply wanted to live his final days in peace, on his terms, with the television blaring if that was his wish, with a morning bowl of cornflakes sitting uneaten on the kitchen table, or not, with the kitchen sink full, or not, with the garden untended, or not, with grass erupting from the sidewalk cracks in front of his home’s door, or not, with a bit of mold blackening the bottom edges of his shower curtain, or not, with the toilet bowl perfectly tended, or not, with the monotony of unassigned time his to control and do with as he wished.
As one of the great criminal trial lawyers of this county, and perhaps the next, and later a judge whose appearance following the words “all rise” was an ominous portent for the hoodlums awaiting trial, he had earned this.
He was proud of his hanging judge reputation, even for the smallest of offenses. Few things in life had offered him a greater thrill than sentencing the woman who shoplifted a Black and Decker hand drill she had stuffed into a large purse to such an extreme sentence that it made national news.
“I am the reduction of crime itself,” he once told a local reporter. “In this county, and the next. I make vacations possible for local deputies.”
One day, his son and daughter arrived at his home, a day when old cornflakes sat fermenting in their milk, when the grass erupted from the cracks in the concrete, the lawn wasn’t mowed, and the toilet bowl was screaming for mercy. And his son declared in a quiet, unemotional tone, “We’re moving you to the Ingalls Nursing Home.”
He thought he heard his daughter murmur under her breath, “For the criminally insane,” but he ignored them as if they had been spoken by a ghost.
Moving him without his permission was not legal, and he said so. He was a judge. His son reminded him that the judge had given him power of attorney, provided to him by the judge himself after his stroke, and that it was unfortunate that he had forgotten this small morsel of information, this tiny accounting of life, but that was that, and the papers were all signed, and that it was in his best interest to prepare because he’d be moving from the house in two weeks.
“In other words, do some fucking laundry,” his daughter added. “It smells like a bunch of rats died in a pool of bat guano in this place.”
“Sis.”
Sis shrugged. “Well?”
It was that afternoon, after his loving children left, that the dreamettes began. These briefest of adventures lasted only a few seconds, but became the highlights of his day. Whenever Stuart began to doze off, a dreamette would fire up inside his head like a momentary Scorsese film clip.
The first dreamette was nothing more than someone reacting to one of the judge’s many harsh sentences. A momentary flash of thought and the words, “You can’t do this,” emerged from the stricken voice of the perp, but all the judge saw were broken, chapped, purple lips turning darkness into a sardonic Cheshire moment. Then it was over.
He snapped out of his near slumber, realizing that it was all fiction. He had never encountered this person in real life, but it was a satisfying dreamette nonetheless, despite the razor-thin lines of blood decorating the swollen lips, and despite the voice sounding like the final swipes from someone streaking glass with a spray of ammonia.
The dreamettes became more frequent. All of them were quite short. Five seconds here, ten seconds there, always just as he was nodding off in his La-Z-Boy chair, sometimes with a bowl of cornflakes sitting on the kitchen table, sometimes not.
In one of them, an attractive woman with straight ebony hair and goth eyes said, “These dreams are the ghosts in your eyes.”
The dreamette faded as soon as it began.
Even though most of the dreamettes were stark, he enjoyed them. He looked forward to them enough that naps became the most important parts of his day. He might shuffle into the kitchen to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, bring it back to his La-Z-Boy, and might, or might not, get up to throw the paper plate away.
Whether a spot of jelly affixed itself to the plate or not didn’t enter into the decision. The decision was purely random, and mostly depended on whether he wanted to move his tired legs across the living room, into the kitchen, and back again.
This was a longer trek than even a year ago, but one must respect biology and wobbly knees.
Each day, the dreamettes grew starker. One of them featured a snappy little film the Judge called “Penance.” It was nothing more than a brief look of horror encased within his son’s permanent five o’clock shadow, his eyes beady and wide, appearing as if they might shoot out of their sockets. Instead, they rotated at such a furious speed that the color of his blue eyeballs became a streak within the bloodshot white of his eyes before turning utterly black.
When his son’s wife called later to say that diabetic blindness had squashed her husband’s eyesight, all the judge could do was chuckle in the kind of way that only victory can produce.
“He’s okay, now, though?” the judge asked, successfully containing further spoils of victory. A loud guffaw during this moment would not do. “They gave him something?”
“He’s fine. It was temporary.”
The judge ended the call and closed his eyes, fraught with anticipation.
The next dreamette was nothing more than a man in a blue safari hat tripping. The next displayed a man hitting something with a hammer. The next was a man drinking a clear glass of blood. The next was a woman flying through a shattering picture window. The next was a German Shepherd snarling with a frothing mouth. The next was an axe gutting someone’s forehead. The judge found that alarming, but still interesting.
None of these were surrounded by a story. They were short-lived, a few seconds at most, after which he invariably woke up.
All of these dreamettes took place in that state between sleep and consciousness. He felt more awake than asleep. It was as if the dreamettes were intruders upon meditation, of which he knew nothing, as meditation was the domain of witches, harlots, heathens, and blasphemers.
Two weeks passed.
He had made no preparations, and hadn’t heard a squeak from his ungrateful children. Would his son stop by today, bringing an ultimatum and a U-Haul?
He doubted it. He made himself a grilled cheese sandwich and sat at his La-Z-Boy to eat it.
When he set the paper plate on his lap, he took comfort in the warmth of his newly made sandwich as his eyes closed and he drifted into a dreamette.
There, he saw a dog with glaring yellow eyes snarling through a mouth full of teeth drenched in dripping saliva.
And that was it. Dreamette over.
Satisfied, Stuart took a bite from his sandwich and fell asleep.
He was woken by the buzz of his phone on the end table next to him.
He glanced at the screen. It was his daughter, whom he had no desire to talk to, but when he realized she might be trying to deliver an ultimatum, he snatched the phone and said, “What? I’m trying to take a nap.”
“I don’t know how to say this,” said the daughter who was never at a loss for words, especially when delivering strife.
“Well, there are no laws that say you must,” said Stuart. His thumb was poised on the red icon.
“It’s umm, Dad, it’s Herb.”
“I’m old, and I get easily confused. You don’t sound like my son. You sound like my infantile daughter.”
“Fuck, Dad, he’s dead.”
“The Diabetes got him? That was quick,” said Stuart, largely disinterested.
“Could you not be a dick for thirty seconds of your shitty life? He’s dead!”
“Yeah, yeah, you said.”
It sounded like she was crying. For a moment that lasted about as long as a dreamette, he was taken back to her childhood, and he wanted to comfort her.
“He was mauled by two Cane Corsos as he was trying to save a Labradoodle from one of them in a dog park.” Each word came out slowly, shakily, almost touched, from the first word to the last, by a certainty that another was not forthcoming because she was too distraught to continue.
“Oh, shit,” said Stuart. “I guess that means I’ll be staying.”
Notes
I wrote this in about two hours early this morning, so it might be a little rough around the edges. As such, it is subject to future edits.
This story was prompted by my own dreamettes, which are a new phenomenon in my life. That, and I’ve been wanting to write a Halloween story.
I don’t know if my dreamettes are a result of getting older or a late side effect of my stroke recovery. Luckily, my dreamettes are usually benign, and nothing like the nightmarish sequences our friend Stuart experiences.
Do you have dreamettes? If so, what are they like?
Happy Halloween. Did you know that Psalm of Vampires takes place almost entirely during Halloween?
Thanks for reading!
Oh, and don’t forget: The sequel to Psalm of Vampires is in the works, and it’s right here on Substack, free, free, and free!
Even more news: You can now purchase a PDF of all my Substack Fiction. Only $4.99. That’s less than a Starbucks Venti Latte. This story is not in the collection.
Enter SUBSCRIBER_SPECIAL to get a 20 percent discount.
It’s also now available on Amazon/Kindle in ebook, paperback, and hardcover formats (the Kindle version is free if you have Kindle Unlimited):
If you are a paid subscriber, it’s available free as a Perk. Just go to the “Perks” page via the web page menu to find it.
You can help me reach more people by subscribing (paid or free), sharing, restacking, and commenting.
No dreamettes here. So far. Happy Halloween to you too! And sweet dreamettes !
To sleep perchance to dream.