If I  go through all my old draft posts and find the one that requires the least amount of editing (even if that means it’s been languishing as a draft for nearly four years), and if I edit it and then type these words…… it still counts as writing, right?  Right?

*******

The door slammed open to the boys’ bedroom, and the dark shadow hovered there for a moment, face indistinct against the haze of shadows and bright hallway light.

“Not that one,” he said, his voice raspy, almost guttural with its malevolent harshness.  His finger flicked disparagingly at the younger brother, who gripped the bedspread and stared at him in terrified silence.

Slowly, oh so slowly, his head rotated on his neck, before fixating on the DragonMonkey, who sat up abruptly in his bed.

“THAT one,” he said, his voice full of a deep satisfaction.

He crossed the room in one stride, lunged forward, and slammed the DragonMonkey face down on his bed.  The force of the attack was so sudden, and so fierce, that the DragonMonkey’s leg caught on the wall as he flipped.  His leg broke, the bone shattering and the foot dislocating, spinning the entire bottom half of his leg the wrong way.

The pain of that was overwhelming, and the DragonMonkey began to cry.  The man snarled at him indistinctly, angered by the sound of his tears, and with one dark look he swept him from the bed and slammed him on the floor.

Meanwhile, down in the living room I sat uncaring, typing on my computer. I heard the slam of the DragonMonkey’s body as he hit the ground, but I didn’t get up to check.  “Stop that noise, SQUID!” I hollered up, unaware, uncaring, unfeeling,,,,,oblivious that it was a bad guy abusing my children, and not the Squid jumping off of his bed.

*****

“And you didn’t come.”  The DragonMonkey narrows his green eyes at me.  “You were supposed to come.  You weren’t supposed to say ‘Stop that noise’.  It wasn’t Squid.  It was a bad guy.  And you were supposed to come save me from a bad guy.”

I sigh.  Again.

And I apologize.  Again.

“I’m so, so sorry, DragonMonkey.  That sounds like a very scary, very bad dream.  Mommy has bad dreams like that, too. And you know you are so much more important to me than my writing, and that in real life I would know if a bad guy was up there. I wouldn’t ignore you. I would go up there and save you from him, so you don’t have to worry about stuff like that.”

He glares at me, unappeased.  “But it wasn’t Squid jumping on the bed.  You said ‘SHHHH’, but it wasn’t him playing.  It was a bad guy. You shouldn’t tell me SHHHH. You should come save me.”

I take a deep breath and prepare to apologize again.

Seriously though, where does a four-year old brain come up with this, anyways?  I mean… if the ability to have incredibly realistic dreams is genetic, couldn’t he just get the nice ones?  How did he come with this Steven-King-worthy nightmare?  I mean, I know I have my own share of scary dreams, but SERIOUSLY.  If he’s got insecurities about how much I love him, or whatever created this nightmare, can’t he just daydream about me buying toys for other little boys, or something normal like that?

At least his happy dreams outweigh his bad dreams by a good margin.  Still.

Also, I’m sorry Bean.  Now I know what it feels like, when I wake up angry at you from my dreams.  I probably shouldn’t make you apologize, now that I know how silly it feels.

Although, really. I’m still a little bit angry.  You should have known better, even if it was a dream.