It’s a few minutes past seven in the morning, an hour I don’t typically see as we’re a nocturnal household, going to bed hours after midnight and not typically starting the day before nine.

Why, then, am I up and typing?

Because about four hours ago, I had a bad dream, and even after waking up, using the bathroom, splashing my face with water, raising the temperature of our room, and reading for a few minutes, every time I slipped back into sleep, I would enter the same dreamscape.

I really don’t like it when no matter what I do, a dream refuses to let go. I especially dislike it when I’m tired enough to really NEED to sleep a bit more. And of course, today’s Friday, a day when I typically try not to work, and if I have work to do, make every effort to be done by noon. A morning sleep-deficit means I’ll either fall back to a safe sleep after posting this and then oversleep later, or be fatigued and grumpy all day.

As to the dream…I recognized elements of it from a really creepy sci-fi/horror short story I read years ago, and a paranormal movie that Nicole Kidman made several years ago – completely unrelated worl, mind you, and yet the merged into a seamless terror that had me turning on actual lamps to light my way to the bathroom (which is en suite) rather than using the light of my iPhone or Kindle as I usually do…

Later, when the sun is fully up, and that annoying mockingbird outside my window has picked a new tune, and I’ve slept some more, I will try to capture the dream in the form of a short story, but maybe I won’t, because some things take on new life when out on the page, instead of being neatly pinned like a butterfly in a box.