NervousMan Dreams Dreamy Dreams in the Dark Darkness

Shoulders slumped, and feeling dejected, NervousMan walked back into the darkness of his apartment and sullenly reached behind the blind and closed the glass partition of his window with a soft 'THUMP'.

"I must learn to be more quiet," thought NervousMan.

Being quiet was good. NervousMan enjoyed quiet anyway, because noise made NervousMan nervous. To sit and to be still and to be away from noise and dust and the mean people outside, these things were all good, thought NervousMan.

Very softly, outside his closed window NervousMan could hear the sound of a siren off in the distance.

Perhaps, thought NervousMan, someone somewhere was having an emergency.

Yes, of course, thought NervousMan. Why else would there be a siren if someone, somewhere wasn't in trouble for some reason?

But NervousMan didn't know what these things were. He was glad that, at least for now, he could be quiet and not be in trouble. The way he had got into trouble with the mean neighbor.

NervousMan listened carefully. Outside the window, from somewhere down below, he could hear the mean neighbor talking to someone else. NervousMan thought he heard the words '...shifty-eyed little freak'...' being said.

NervousMan frowned and felt sad.

NervousMan walked around his dark place, quietly, thinking to himself.

Walking past the mirror in the hallway, NervousMan could barely make out the reflection of his own shape.

In a way it was nice, in the dark. Because NervousMan could not see himself, or much of anything else.

NervousMan didn't like to be in the dark all the time, just like NervousMan didn't like to be in the light all the time. Sometimes the light, or the dark, was pleasant, but if the light or the dark continued for too long, it made NervousMan nervous.

Too much of anything made NervousMan nervous.

NervousMan paced a little bit more in the still darkness of his apartment, thinking about his thoughts, and then decided that perhaps he should take a nap.

Even though it was the middle of the day, NervousMan felt tired from being so nervous. Dealing with the mean neighbor had worn him out.

And so NervousMan took off his robe, and got into bed in the dark and pulled the covers up to his chin. He stared off into the silence of his room and after a while he began to dream.

In the dream, NervousMan was still in his apartment but the apartment was much bigger and had many many rooms. The ceiling was very high up almost out of sight, NervousMan saw.

NervousMan had a sense that there were mean people outside of his apartment who were looking for him. If they found him, NervousMan knew, they would be very mean to him indeed.

NervousMan ran from room to room, trying to find a place to hide before the mean people came.

Somewhere in the dream-apartment of many many rooms, NervousMan heard a roar of a great monster. It sounded very very scary and loud and NervousMan was scared and frozen with great fright.

NervousMan peered down a dark hallway in the apartment of his dreams and saw the long scaly green tail of a green dragon disappear into one of the rooms.

The dragon was looking for NervousMan!

"Quickly! quickly! I must find a place to run and hide from this dragon or it will find and eat me!" NervousMan thought.

NervousMan looked down and saw that he was carrying the book 'Your Immortal Reality', which he got from the library, in his hand.

NervousMan blinked.

And then something strange happened.

NervousMan realized that he was dreaming a dream. After all, this was not his apartment. His apartment was only one bedroom and this was many. And there was no such thing as a dragon even though he had just seen one walk into one of the other rooms of his place.

NervousMan looked at the wall in front of him and reached out to touch it.

It seemed solid and it looked real. There was nothing else here to be seen. Then, NervousMan looked at the floor. He noticed the threads in the carpet and he bent down to feel the texture of them with his hand. How real it was. And yet, how could it be if he was dreaming.

NervousMan looked at his hand and it seemed to pulsate and warp in front of his eyes.

Now, he KNEW that what he was seeing was not really real. How could such things be if they were real? NervousMan had to be dreaming.

From far off in the apartment of many rooms, NervousMan heard the howl of the dragon bellow and bray. He imagined the cruel visage of the beast as it turned down a nearby hallway.

NervousMan must run! But to where?

NervousMan was nervous.

When NervousMan stood up he saw graffiti writing on the white wall in front of him.

The words spelled out a phrase that NervousMan had heard somewhere before.

"One Bad Apple Spoils the Whole Damn Bunch"

He was sure that was what it said, but as NervousMan took a second look at the words, they seemed to shimmer and change. NervousMan reached out to the words on the wall.

And then... before NervousMan knew it... everything changed.