This Is Why I Don't Do Drugs

I imagine if I were to ever take drugs, I’d have similar visions that come alive in my dreams. This is why I don’t do drugs. 

During my childhood, my Mom had always enjoyed having life-sized dolls placed in various rooms. They would either be sitting innocently on armchairs or creepily standing in corners. I’m sure you can guess why friends did not enjoy having sleepovers at my place. In this dream, I’m 10 years old and my brothers would have been 8 and 6 years old. We are hiding behind the couch in our living room, because one of my Mom’s dolls has come alive and is hunting us. We could hear her frilly, white dress rustle as she stalked up the stairs from the basement. As she makes her way up, my brothers and I are trying to conjure up the other dolls in our house (including a Chucky doll from Halloween) to join us and fight the evil doll, that, we noticed, has very sharp teeth. However, no matter how hard we beg or shake the dolls, none of them come alive. We become silent when we hear little footsteps in the living room. We turn our heads and…

I don’t have a chance to see the stuff of nightmares because I’m suddenly an adult and in a high-rise building. It’s extremely windy because the building doesn’t have any walls. I see a perfect skyline of the city of Chicago, but I don’t take in the view as long as I’d like because I hear those little footsteps running behind me.  

As I start to run away, the building starts to collapse. I eventually make it outside and when I turn around, the building is a complete ruin. I catch my breath only to notice people frantically running around. They are being chased by all their childhood monsters. Little creepy dolls yielding butcher knives run up slicing ankles, zombies creep up and are suddenly eating someone’s arm, and howling, fierce werewolves are slicing and infecting people. Apparently all these horrific creatures had been released in the city. I dodged through all the commotion, avoiding all the claws and teeth along the way. I came close to being a vampire’s snack before a stranger staked him through the heart.

Stumbling through city ruin, I find a man in a wheelchair, and wheel him to safety. We both hide out in a bedroom closet and, longing for normalcy, I start making out with him. What else would you do if it was the end of the world?

When I look up from our long embrace, I'm no longer on his lap or in the closet. I’m in a suburban neighborhood with perfectly-lined houses and white picket fences. Strangely, the neighborhood is surrounded by a dense and dark forest.

Although no longer surrounded by deadly creatures, I still sense something is preying on the town. I walk into the forest - because I’m an idiot. The trees looked like normal trees at first, but when I emerge into the forest they transform into massive living spaces. Some must have been at least 50 stories high. I feel like I see things moving around, but when I look into the tree homes, I just see branches. But that’s exactly what is moving around. The creatures living in the trees were Tree People. And apparently, tree people were branches of trees that walked around on their branch legs, and grabbed things with their branch arms. As I got closer, I distinctly saw their eyes, noses, and mouths placed strangely on their branch heads.

A group of Tree People starts to scream, and one of them emerges from the crowd, yelling “Big Foot! He is coming!” All the Tree People run inside of their tree homes and slam their doors shut. After my day, I am in no mood to meet Big Foot. I climb one of the taller trees and break into one of the Tree People’s homes. He is trying to force me out, when our heads whip around at the pounding on the door. I shove the Tree Person to the side, and escape out the back window. On the way down the tree, I hear BigFoot upstairs growl a menacing growl and then I hear a loud SNAP.  

I make my way out of the forest and back into the neighborhood. In the plaza, the neighbors set up a tent and they are serving food to homeless children. I look down the long queue of hungry mouths, and stand in disbelief as the neighbors eventually lead them back into the forest. I can’t just let them go in there alone, with Big Foot roaming around and snapping people in half. To protect them, I walk back into the forest.