They Tell Me of a Home: A Novel by Daniel Black

Author:Daniel Black [Black, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Literary, United States, Women's Fiction, Domestic Life, Contemporary Fiction, American, Literary Fiction, African American, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Psychological
Amazon: B004M8SQYI
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2006-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

14

I didn’t sleep well that night. Indeed, I had had many sleepless nights in my parents’ house. Nightmares haunted me incessantly as a child, resulting in hours of early-morning reading time as I awaited the dawning of a new day. Sister and I thought ghosts dwelled in our house and were determined to get us. Sometimes we would hide under the covers holding hands, praying our collective strength was sufficient to ward off evil. By morning, we would rise joyfully, relieved the previous night had not been our last.

However, I must have fallen asleep at least briefly, for I remember having had the strangest dream. I was seventy or eighty years old, walking with a cane down a dusty dirt road. The sun was shining resplendently, and suddenly I found myself entangled with a host of beasts. The first was big and red, with one eye. He had alligator skin and tigerlike teeth. The monster stood at least nine feet tall and weighed well over a ton. I was swinging my cane with all my aged might, but the red beast was clearly my physical superior. Fatigue consumed me, but I refused to abandon the fight. The beast’s razor claws sliced my arm into layers of flesh and blood. I bellowed curses unmentionable and conjured virility enough to pick up a nearby rock and fling it at the monster’s eye. It hit the creature, but it did not hurt him. He roared loudly, frightening me, and then charged me ferociously. He was about to devour me when another beast appeared. This one was forest green, with no head. She had one eye the size of a watermelon in the middle of her head. Her breasts were hairy, firm, clearly distinguishable, standing upon her chest, like grassy mountain ranges. She, too, roared vivaciously, but, much to my astonishment, she attacked the red creature. She was a little smaller than him, but no less fierce. Frozen in the moment, I was unable to run or scream. The beasts’ intertwined bodies made it impossible to ascertain which of the two was overpowering the other. Both shrieked wildly when the other struck intensely, and neither appeared the worse for it.

After a moment, the fighting ceased. The creatures stared at each other as though wondering why they had ever been contentious. Then, suddenly, they turned on me, approaching cautiously, having prepared themselves, it appeared, for this confrontation. The green female grabbed my arm and began to jerk it violently. I wasn’t going to die easily, I resolved. Gritting my teeth, I screamed, “Bitch,” and kicked her mightily, although to no avail. She twisted my arm out of its socket and threw it over her shoulder like one discards a chicken bone. Her subsequent laughter incensed me. In fact, she laughed hysterically and fell to the ground. In my distraction, the red male grabbed me from behind and squeezed my stomach until pus issued from my mouth and ran down my cheeks onto my shirt. That’s when I noticed laughter coming from every direction around me.

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