Carol's Dream

Word Count: 745

Blackness filled the room. Tentatively I walked into the room, trying to stuff down the panic that threatened to erupt from the pit of my stomach. Why were the lights off? There had to be some sort of logical reason for this but no answers jumped to the front of my mind. I called into the blackness, “Hello?”

There was no answer. If my friends were throwing me a surprise party, I would be really touched, and really pissed. They knew how afraid I was of the dark and certainly did not find this to be funny or a suitable way to celebrate my birthday. Celebrating my birthday didn’t make any sense because my birthday wasn’t for another five months. Of course that would be the surprise, since I would never suspect that was what they were up to.

A red circle became visible in the middle of the room. This was some sort of trick that was being played on me. Red was not a color that I wore well, except for in politics and even though most of the time I ended up blue. Suddenly creepy carnival music started playing. The breath got caught in my chest, I turned to leave the room but the door disappeared. I smoothed back my hair, wondering what in the world was happening to me, had I finally gone insane like Jeff had always said I would?

“Hello, Carol!” A voice said behind me. It was creepy, like one of those serial killers from the scary movies that I watched. I turned around to find a clown standing inches from me. His face was painted white, a curly red wig sat on top of his head. In his gloved hand, he held a long butchers knife. Slowly I backed away from him, my eyes darting everywhere for some sort of escape. “You will find that leaving this room is quite futile. See this is where you die. You have failed at everything that you have done.”

Something began crawling on my neck, and I let out a shriek of terror. This made the twisted Clown, grin even more. His painted on mouth, seem to grow in size every time I was on the verge of collapsing. It was all becoming too much for me. Something in the back of my head told me that the only way that I would make it out of this alive was if I stood my ground and didn’t give in. “You know what, maybe I haven’t always succeeded but at least I don’t behind a ton of makeup that even Tammy Faye wouldn’t wear.”

A single dim light flickered on in the middle of the room. On each side of the room were my parents. My dad as always had a glass of scotch in his hand and was glaring over at my mother who was holding a protest sign. I looked between them, hoping that they would magically give me the answers to what was going on but they didn’t speak. So I addressed them, “Mommy, Daddy! What’s going on here?”

“You are a disappointment, young lady.” Daddy huffed. He raised his glass and then hurled it at me. It just barely missed me but the amber liquid splashed all over my white shirt. His face was redder than I had ever seen it before. “You should be married with children by now, instead you are off doing stupid things with your life. No one will ever love you now, and I could never love someone with so little respect for tradition.”

“Mommy make him quit saying that!”

“Tradition? So a woman should be barefoot and pregnant? No wonder why you died a lonely, bitter man! No she shouldbe out there trying to save the world, trying to make it a better place for everyone but no instead she is a disappointment who can’t do anything right.”

My parents chanted the word: “Failure” together. It was the first thing that they had agreed on since I was born. Tears fell from my eyes, I kept trying to say “no” but nothing came out. The room began to spin.

I sat straight up. My alarm clock read 8:25 am. Five minutes until I had to wake up and get ready for the first Presidential debate that I was taking part in. Briefly I wondered what my dream meant, but then decided I just needed a mimosa to get the day started.