Childhood Nightmares: Chapter Two of "Ussers and the Echo of Nothing"
Memories from earliest childhood (partly mine, partly fictional) continue in these fragments of Chapter Two of this experimental novel. Fear and dream-sequences shatter familiar language.
Refer to the May 22nd post if you need to review what "ussers" are, though they are only mentioned briefly here in a dream.
Ussers and the Echo of Nothing
Chapter Two
Fear
Hot summer night
Sleep, dream.
Hat sum merknight
H some some lightight sight sigh darknesses
Dsoiug goians; oiub
Fo gho know ahgoq ghghgh stm
Darkness below, we were there, and that darkness was
mushrooms and over thedge also grownd on all sidse but you can’t button
mushrooms. The road continued but they’d like it.
—Go!
—Let’s go sea!
—Mushrooms are a fun gas for the car.
We drove into the rags, dirty glass, slide them, or to
see where it seemflowers, sunflowers, sunglowers, and rootsed to mind backled there.
You can’t cook a peel into a loop-way round.
—Certain species.
—That’s a new word, said Dad.
—They are at the edge.
Fungus lay on the horizon. The street continued. Not much
room. Small blue car. Past kimlimtimmels. We drove along the same size, heng
the road. No instead, they are unfamiliar, because things changed slowly away,
can use munchrooms beneath earth a while. Mommy is momming this side!
—Wall of the much room.
There were eight which we ate, which meant five like a
paw into the fireplace. Mushed rooms rise up and attach to the car. Car gone
now. All Lego blocks, building bridge to see. Road curlarounds into mushroomshape.
We walked through the door.
—Here’s the store, said Budlaboosh.
—Variety of objects and us.
Road curlups into rollercoasting loop. We went in at the
open-air market floating in clouds. Bins of stems, or stalks, tough and stringy
somethingth, nasty-looking evilsmeeling treebbly bulbs which had a rhyme to them
and were grey-green; fist-sized, kelpropy.
—What are these?
—Must be some kind of fungus.
—Not fun, Gus.
—Should be removed.
I awoke and looked around. There was no open-air
market or road that curled into a loop in the distance. There were no bins of
kelpy, ropy, foul-smelling fungus. I was in my room. The dream was fading,
though its dread was still in my mind.
What exactly is a fungus? I began to wonder.
And drifted back to sleep.
*******
I turned on the TV because I was bored. I saw a
spaceship.
“Oh, that’s Star Trek,” said Mom. “You might not like
it. It’s science fiction. It might be scary.”
My eyes narrowed. “I’ll like it!” I defied, because I
liked stories about rockets and going to the moon.
I watched.
A series of bizarre images. Close-up
of an eye, getting closer, filling the black and grey screen. Flicker. Something
moved within that eye. Now there was no pupil, but a smaller scene of people,
lying about at odd angles across ill-defined furniture in a large room. Flicker.
The scene changed to that room. The people were scattered, as asleep, but there
was something horribly unnatural in the way they were lying. They were wearing
strange clothes; red and blue shirts like uniforms. Flicker. Hummm. Whirrrrr. Three
blobs of glitter appeared in the middle of the room, away from the people. The
blobs spread and intensified, taking on the shapes of men. Then there were
three men standing there (as the glitter faded); three men dressed in the same
strange clothes as the sleeping people; though one had a red shirt, one blue,
and one yellow[3]. There
was something wrong with the man in the blue shirt: his eyebrows sloped up at
the temples, his hair was shiny (greasy?) and his ears were pointed like a
cat’s, or a kimlimtimmel’s.
The men didn’t move or speak for a second. Then they
went over to one of the sleeping women, who seemed to be trying to get up. Close-up
of her face. She began moving her mouth, but not to speak. Just slowly opening
and closing her lips, sometimes showing her teeth. She was making noises,
grunting like a slowed-down tape recorder.
Pan to the faces of the three men, who were now
bending over her.
“Just like the other one,” said the man in the yellow
shirt, “Better have him beam down here. She must have fainted just after the
storm.”
Cut back to the woman. Her face began to radiate. Awful,
diseased colors came from under her skin, and her visage broke apart into a
gleaming mask of vermilion and green.
I backed up in my chair. Unholy terror seized me. I
might have screamed.
On the screen, the three men were unaffected. “Ever
seen anything like that before?” asked one of them, his face illuminated by the
ghastly glow from the woman’s’ face. “No,” replied the other, matter-of-factly.
I had never seen anything like if before either. Mom
quickly snapped off the TV. “You know it’s only the camera that made her face
do that,” she said to reassure me.
I knew that in my mind, but not in my heart. The
damage had been done.
I don’t remember much more that evening, except that
when Dad came home he tried to help me build a toy car with my Lego blocks. I
couldn’t build it. The shapes of the Lego blocks reminded me of the weird
furniture in that TV show. There were people lying across the furniture,
scattered, at strange angles. One of them will wake up, emit awful noises, and
her face will start to glow.
I couldn’t eat dinner either. Meat looked like her
face, just as it had shredded into light. Vegetables were green, one of its
colors. They will break apart into uglier glowing green.
I couldn’t sleep. I dreamed the show, exactly as I had
seen it. I lay there for a few minutes, recalling every detail of the show and
the dream of the show. Three men materialized in glitter. Something was
wrong with one of them. The woman’s face broke apart into glowing colors.
I got up and went out into the hallway, carefully lest
I disturb the woman with the gleaming face whom I knew was nearby. I found my
Mom carrying a basket of laundry to be folded.
“You can’t sleep either?” I asked her, but I dared not
look at her. The second our eyes met, she’d disintegrate into a mass of
bright colors. The three men were standing nearby to watch.
I tried to go back to sleep, and again dreamed the
show in every detail. I woke up, lay there panting in the close darkness. The
three men would materialize, come over to me, and I would faint — my
mouth making grunting noises, my face scattering ugly, unnatural light.
The show repeated endlessly in my mind, for days,
weeks, for months. All my thoughts coalesced into an all-consuming, blinding
fear. I dared not sleep, because I knew I’d dream the show again. I dared not stay
awake, because every minute the memories repeated. I dared not turn on the TV,
because I knew the show would play again. I dared not turn off the TV, because
I knew that when I got closer, the show would suddenly come on again and I’d
have to see it closer than before. I dared not go visit anyone, because I knew
they’d have a TV. I dared not be alone, because I knew that my mind would
recall the show. I dared not be with others, because I knew that their faces
would remind me of someone in the show; either the woman whose face radiated,
or the men who watched her. I dared not eat, sleep, play, walk, run, sit, go to
school, stay home from school, do anything, or do nothing — any activity or
lack of activity would set my mind wandering back to images of that show.
My mind had become Fear of The Show. Every thought became the Fear. Every idea
stemmed from the Fear, and every idea died, deformed and putrefying, returning
to the Fear. Every sound was an assault to the ears, because the Fear was
lurking behind all sounds. Every sight was a horror, because the Fear perverted
and twisted what I saw. All responses, actions, and inactions were dictated by
the Fear, and all knowledge was that it must win in the end. I sat there
on the floor of my room, rocking back and forth and whimpering to myself. I was
afraid of all.
*******
Late night in the early autumn, perhaps six months
after the Trekattack. I was fitfully sleeping, recalling the gleaming colors in
my mind. The three men are about to materialize in sparkle and hiss.
A hand gently shook me awake. I sat up, rubbing my
eyes. Dad was in the room, his face half-hidden in the dim light of my
night-light.
“I have to take you to the neighbors,” he said. “Mom
is sick.”
She must have fainted after the storm. She will grunt
and snarl, and her face will glow, like in the show. I didn’t say anything at first, but got up, pulled
on my jeans and T-shirt, and picked my way gingerly through the mounds of Star
Trek drawings scattered on the floor.
Mom was sitting on the sofa in the living room, and she
had become something horrible. She was wearing her nightgown, with a sweatshirt
over the top. Her hair was tangled and frayed, as if she’d been pulling at it,
scratching it out. Her face was bright red. She must have fainted after the
storm. She will grunt and snarl, and her face will shine hideous hues. Her
eyes were frightening — a metallic glare that looked at me, saw me, didn’t
recognize me, saw through me, saw ghosts and phantasms. Her mouth was twisted
into a cry, but no sound came out. She will make grunting sounds. No, no
grunts; just eerie silence. She was in constant, erratic motion. Her hands
trembled and clawed at the air. She swayed back and forth, side to side,
shaking. She kept knocking her knees together, banging her feet up and down on
the floor. Suddenly she howled, a fierce, dog-like sound, and wrung her hands
together so tightly that they turned pallid white.
Dad ignored the fearful questions in my eyes, took my
hand, and led me out the front door and to the neighbor’s house. I don’t
remember much more of that strange night, except that the neighbors were at the
door to greet me (their faces would glow ghastly colors as soon as I looked)
and led me to a bed in a room at the end of a hall to try to sleep. I could
not, of course. The room is dark. The
Star Trek people must be here, lying across the furniture I can’t see. They’ve
done something to my mom. Soon the glitter will appear and the three men will
materialize, and the woman with the glowing face will illuminate the room with
those horrid colors.
*******
I will
skip over the next part of the story. It doesn’t particularly relate to the
gibjabj that I’ve been talking about. The “Trek attack” continued for another
year or so; since all I could ever talk about was Star Trek, I learned from the
other kids at school the names of the characters (the one who had something
wrong with his face was Spock, and he was from another planet). I could never
watch it, of course — lest
everyone I knew faint and start glowing — but every story and drawing I made had to be
about it, so I would not suffer the same consequence.
My mom
got better, though it took two years. She had suffered a nearly fatal allergic reaction to a prescription medicine. She was in and out of the
hospital for many months.
Mostly
what I remember from this period was one incident, when the “Trek Attack”
ambushed me with a previously unknown ferocity.
*******
An autumn afternoon during second grade; school was
about to let out. Moe Rose, a boy my age, stood up in the front of the room an
announced, “I’m having a party next week. We’re going to have pizza and ice
cream. Who wants to come?”
“Me!” My hand shot up, along with ten or twelve
others.
“Hey, don’t invite Bradner,” shouted Marcus, pointing
to me, “He listens to weird music!”
“It’ll be fun,” continued Moe, “We’ll play games too,
but there won’t be any music because we’ll have the TV on. We’re going to watch
Star Trek!”
I whimpered, froze. I may have screamed, even — I
don’t remember completely because my whole mind had become a wall of blank
terror.
They were laughing at me. That I do remember. My next lucid memory was that I had been crying, and I
was in the middle of a circle of laughing, taunting kids — “Bradner! Bradner! Scared
of Star Trek! Likes weird music! Bradner! Bradner! Scared of Star Trek! Likes
weird music!!”
I yelled for them to shut up and aimed my fist at the
nearest one (Moe). Then I ran. I couldn’t
go to the party anyway, of course; once I was there someone would faint, and
they would collapse on the ground and start grunting and gurgling, and their
face would break apart into gruesome colors.
*******
—Hurry up, you’ll be late!
—Bypasses the sunshine.
Did be late for school and no light. It crashed, said Moo, See the transmission was
too wet for me to use after strange to play. So grunting came home from
frogsoon, recovers, we sat again in school. Three ussers on the wall, one above
the other. Meanwhile, that cold, cold, but she wanted to go that wet day. Grunting.
Gunning. Glowing.
—How I wish I had a car! Star Trek here! Need to escape!
Little blue car as before. I got in. We go out and Kirk,
we did nothing, sky was darkesfrom the Enterpriset. So all black and thundrstorm
manages we could do, we sit in stormwrk, (in fact unable to move, road might have
been too heavy). Sit sit sit welanding party finds. Seemed to be, a fire who is
terrified in the distance, then warns that the only light is to be extinguished.
Not one little bit. Returns, she has had light begin went bump! And to fires the
phaser warningspread; oh how it bumped! Crashed, grimaced, glowed, grunted! Illdead
people, lying around, glowing, illuminating the bat which made us jump!
—Now, said the cat.
Blasts phaser streams in the sky. Clouds are gone, sun is gone, all broken up,
grunting, into lurid colors. We tried to escape. I know someone was there, blueparalyzed
and greenresponsive, colors glistening. Find the car! Usser explodes into green
and scarlet. A lot of gore. The car was gone. We did not know, the alien force was
all the buildfinishing its invasionings, were Lego blocks. The Trek aliens
speak.
Repair car. Put tab (A) into slot (B). No, we cannot. Fear
prevents us from moving. Do something! I cannot. My hand is missing. Someone
stole my left hand.
—Look, the car is fixed.
We drive along the hairline road. Too narrow, Trek too
close. We pass MacDonald’s.
—Let’s stop in for the day.
—Oh, look at the aliens are not here.
Get in line to order fishburger. No fishburgers, only
have glowing meatburgers. All rotten colors, grunting again.
—If you wish, reorder.
—Look at that man in the line. His teeth stick halfway
out.
—Refuses to.
—He should not allow.
He had, I call the conclusionad. He said was idiouts. No
nose, baldboneskull, lower jaw extended outwaaaaard.
—His head is hideous!
—Put me down! I’ll die!
—Incisors.
Bitingpain. Fear. Everyone faints. Glowing colors. Try to
run, can’t. No move. Panic everywhere.
—All sick all diseased.
I
wound up not going to the party; the Fear prevented my even considering it. The
teacher grabbed my arm and dragged me to the principal’s office for hitting
Moe; the other kids continued to taunt me daily for being afraid of Star Trek. I
didn’t mind; facing their mocking laughter was far easier than actually
watching Star Trek. I continued to make all my drawings and stories about it,
though, masking my terror. Eventually I convinced a couple of kids that I might
not be afraid of it anymore.
What? Am
I still afraid of it? Uh — I’ll let you decide whether I seem to
be or not. Huh? What does all of this have to do with the gibjabj I’m trying to
talk about? Bear with me — what the “Trek Attack” developed into forms
the real core of the first part of my narrative.
*******
It was probably when I was in third grade, still
enduring daily taunts for being afraid of TV that my cousin finally grabbed me and
forced me to watch Star Trek. I was over at my uncle’s house for Christmas. The
TV was on; I was avoiding it in the other room, drawing Star Trek pictures.
The Star Trek theme music wafted down the hall from
the TV room. I froze, then bit my lip. I screamed. They were going to torture
me by watching it while I was there! I wailed, “Turn it off! Turn it off!”
The other adults gaped at me. “He’s afraid of Star
Trek,” said my mom. My cousin stomped toward me. “We’ll see about that,” he
said.
I ran. I hid. I tried to squeeze into the cabinet in
the kitchen, under the sink. I knocked over some bottles of cleanser. I banged
my head on the drainpipe. My cousin slammed the door open, reached in and
seized me. I bit his arm, then hit him in the nose, then I ran again. Down the
hall, into a bedroom. I thudded open a closet door, and withdrew in among my
aunt’s dresses. My cousin found me. I bellowed, bit, kicked, and hit. “No! No! Don’t
make me watch it! Turn it off! Turn it off! Please! It’ll kill me! I’ll die!”
Hands — more than two — reached in and grabbed me. I
roared and hit and slapped. But then I was held, tightly, and pulled out of the
closet. I screamed with despair that one of the pairs of hands belonged to my
mom. Then I stiffened, immobilized. It was just too much horror — too much of
an abomination. The three men must be in
the room; the one who has something wrong with his face (and he’s from another
planet) must be coming toward me. They must be controlling my mom’s mind. They’re
going to take me into the room where the woman with the glowing face is. They’re
going to take me in there and I’ll never be able to get out.
Hands held me, carried me. My body went stiff. I had
no more fight. The distress was too great for me to even flee. My mind screamed
“Get out! Go! I’ll suffocate in there!” but my limbs no longer responded. I was
brought into the TV room, feverish, almost unresponsive, and set before the TV.
I collapsed, sobbing, but could no longer move. I closed my eyes tight, tried
to cover my ears, but could not. My hands did not obey. I had gone limp.
The music on the TV didn’t sound scary.
I heard laughter from the others in the room.
The music on the TV did not sound scary.
I heard more laughter from the others in the room;
from my cousin, from my mom.
The music on the TV was starting to sound funny, not
scary at all. There were off-key, mewing sounds in the music — a clarinet laughing
at something. The three men are there, of
course — they’re mocking me. They’re
the kids in my class. They’re laughing at me. If I open my eyes, they’ll pull
me into the TV and take me to the room with the woman with the glowing face.
No, they
aren’t laughing at me. Everyone watching the show is laughing, and they
wouldn’t mock me.
Yes, they
would. My cousin brought me here. My mom helped him. They’re all making fun of
me. They all hate me. They all want to me to get trapped in Star Trek and die.
No, they
don’t hate me. They’re not laughing at me. The three men are in the show; they
can’t see me.
I tentatively opened one eye. I shut it again.
They can’t
see me.
Yes, they
can. They’ll take me into that room. My face with gleam with ghastly green and
yellow.
No, they
can’t see me. They’re laughing at something else. They’re not laughing at me.
I opened one eye again. I saw one of the three men;
the one with the yellow shirt. That one was Kirk; I knew that from what the
kids at school had said. What was he doing? He was holding something furry like
a cat, and he was laughing — and some others in the room with him (they all had
the same kinds of uniforms) were laughing. There were several of those furry
things around. Something funny was happening.
I opened my other eye.
It was, of course, “The Trouble with Tribbles”, the
classic comedy episode. By the time it was finished, I was laughing with my
cousins and my mom.
The Fear was gone. The demon had fled.
I could now watch TV without trepidation.
Vision allow from eyes as I stand, truthing, one man’s whole blue with a book, mintellegence green pattern and his ilashes didn’t show, his words yellowing nothing. So now, colors are beautiful, correctly aligned shining shimmering.
—Indesigners.
Bindthepain. NoFear. Everyone smiles. Glimmering colors. No
need to run. No dark. Panic nowhere.
—Shining exquisite. No sick end diseased.
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