I have been The Sandman for as long as I can remember. That is a long time. I am supposed to provide dreams to the children while they softly sleep, so that they may remember all their little lives the magic of imagining. I have always thought I have done my job well.

Until I had a dream.

I am not supposed to dream myself, I just hand them out to others. Gentle, strange stories, mundane but soothing.

I fell down my stairs. As I lay cursing, my pouch of Sand spilled across me and, splayed on my floor half-elevated, inverted, I instantly slept. Having spent my last sane waking moments cursing in anger seemed to change the magic of my Sand however, because I did not just have a dream. I had a nightmare. The First Nightmare.

The dream was long. The darkness never-ending. I dreamt of wars and pain and desolation and crying children and lurking strangers and fires burning and ash falling and the end of all things. I dreamt of alleys and loneliness and creatures of the deep and dark recesses of the earth. It was a nightmare that made all nightmares.

It broke me.

When I woke, I still had my Sand. But it was no longer gold. It had blackened. If I had seen such darkness but still awakened, perhaps there is a different kind of magic the world ought to see.

I still spread my Sand in the eyes of children, and watch night after night as they morph into creatures of insomnia, nocturnal beasts keeping me at bay with story books of their own. I can wait.

The Sandman got some old grains in his eyes, and dammit man! the evening was pressing on. He had a job to do, despite his eyes being bleary and red. He yawned to himself, quite irrationally cheery: "Blast it now I've been doing this for years---everyone knows I can get it done with my eyes closed!"

So he mustered his grit and groped his way to the door.... every man, woman, and child thoroughly annoyed. Everyone in a sleeping fit. Sand all about! Sand in the mouth, sand in the ears, sand up the nose---Not a single eye that could restfully close. Ugh! the horror of it!

The tormented would be sleepers wriggled and squirmed--- just ready to die's the thought that they inadvertantly formed... And the night watchman chuckled. The evening had gone according to plan. He brandished his scythe in his left hand, ready to bid us all a Very Good Night.

Not a single house still

Everyone moving around

Horrible images plage our minds

There is no more dancing fairies

no more love stories

no more fluffy unicorns

All have been replaced with grusome pictures

people dying

being trapped

your worst nightmare

Instead of dreams the sandman give nightmares

and feeds off your fear

your tears

and places more nightmares

now that all you walls are down

His skin turned a shade of black and leaves a trail of cold

He is your nightmare

Bodies tossing

And shifting....

No more sweet dreams.

What in dreamland-

Is going on?

Shadows all about

Just surround....

Darkness engulfs.

Oh Mr. Sandman-

Where are you?

The Sandman

He is no more....

In his place,

Now forever more-

Is the Boogeyman.

Minds ever screaming

Poor tormented beings....

Nights of rest and calm,

All going to cease-

Sleep is only a dread.

Minds filled with terror

Of pain and monsters....

Nobody likes having-

nightmares for so long.

Will these bad dreams end?

Darkness rages

Through the night

Sweat glistens across my brow

As horrendous images flit through my mind

Every night

He brings me fear

He brings me pain

Until tears streak down my cheeks in the dark

Alone

Alone in the dark

He digs his knife deep under my skin

And slowly carves my heart out

I let him

How could I stop his darkness?

I let him

Tear me to pieces

And when he's done

After he's filled me with darkness

The pictures in my head

Stop torturing my soul

He wraps his arms

Around my waist

And pulls me closer

To him

I smile at him

And kiss him softly

And I walk by his side

As he poisons minds

And haunts others in their dreams

And makes me fall in mine

(A sequeal to my short story, "The Sandman and The Dreamer" from another challenge.)

RRRAAAGGHHHHH!!!

IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!!!

HOW DOES SHE DO THAT?!?!

Nightmare after nightmare, she always wins at the end of the night!! Taming my hideous beasts, defeating my most cruel and haunting dreams, changing my tragic illusions into heroic fairytales!! Its just not possible!!! No mortal human can be that brave so easily! She is frightened, I see it all the time! But why does she always come forward and sleep anyways?! Why is she so determined to defeating my nightmares! IS SHE MOCKING ME?! I once gave her wonderous dreams, hoping she would be mine alone, but no! She rejects me, saying we could never be together, even if we wanted to!! Well, fine! If that's how you want to play it, then I'll drive you mad and break your spirit a thousand times each night until you BEG me to end it all!!!

Go ahead!! Bring on you rabbit soldiers with crystal-tipped spears! Bring on your most powerful songs and spells, your 'beloved' lucid dream characters to aid you on your nightmarish battles! I can be creativy, too!! I'll always have more for you, my dear Bria!!! I'll put you in a deep slumber, alright. So that you will always be mine, and never leave from my glorious dreams! I'll keep you trapped here forever in my nightmares, like the real Sleeping Beauty you are! So go ahead!! Try and stop me! Let's see how long you can keep up! Breaking your mind, suffering alive, awake or not, is a thousand times worse than death!!!

So sleep, I dare you.

It was there the nightmares years ago begun,

With pain and screams and torture found within;

I can not wait 'til, long last, they'll be done.

Distress they caused could never be undone,

Such horrors at the surface like a sin;

It was there the nightmares years ago begun.

I plunged in darkness, gone just like the sun,

And whirled around so long my head did spin;

I can not wait 'til, long last, they'll be done.

The visions plagued me, I thought they had won,

My skin prickled, as from many pins;

It was there the nightmares years ago begun.

Returning to that place would make me run,

This was a battle I could never win;

I can not wait 'til, long last, they'll be done.

Over the years I've lived upon the rim,

Where pain does rise and fill up to the brim;

It was there the nightmares years ago begun,

I can not wait 'til, long last, they'll be done.

#nightmares #challenge #horror #poetry #villanelle

Susie

"Mom!"

"What's wrong, honey?"

It's a little past midnight.

"I dreamed a monster jumped out of the dishwasher and bit off all my fingers!"

Robert

"Daddddddd!"

Dad runs into the boy's bedroom. "What's wrong, son?"

"I dreamed my trucks turned into monsters and ate me!"

Holly

"April! Sissy!"

April dashes into the room. "What's wrong, little sister?"

"I dreamed a big monster ate the house and then the world exploded!"

April, Dad, and Mom meet by the old gas station on the corner of Honey Brick and Gooseberry.

April is the first to speak. "It's happening again."

"I know." Dad says, wiping his brow.

Mom puts on hand out in front of her, palm down. "Ready for this, ya'll?"

Dad nods and slaps his hand down on top of Mom's.

"Let's reverse him. Again." April's hand slaps Dad's.

"One, two, three!" They all yell and the hands fly up.

Off they go.

Okay, I get that we all go a little bit crazy when bad shit happens to us. Believe me, I get it. But when it starts affecting your business and your customers, you better shape up.

I don't CARE if Beachman divorced you. I mean, I guess I'm sorry or whatever that he hooked up with Palmtreeman, but that ain't my problem.

Ever since you went batshit, Sandy, you decided to give everyone NIGHTMARES. Thanks to YOU, my little Timmy can't get images of David Bowie's crotch bulge chasing him all because he dreams about it EVERY NIGHT.

Not to mention how I keep having dreams about spiders, clowns, my ex-wife, ghosts, the inevitable heat death of the universe, monsters, penguins, my drunk uncle Kevin, haunted houses, dolls, Donald Trump, psycho killers, and airplane peanuts.

It's been a LITERAL NIGHTMARE!!!

Sorry Sandy, I will now go to Dreamy McDreamface Incorporated for my services.

PS: I don't blame Beachman for dumping you. Who'd wanna keep you around with THAT haircut?

PSS: Enter Sandman by Metallica is no longer my favorite song.

Crisp blue commingled with unplacable green along the roadside. The sun was finally living up to its label as a "celestial body," not just a lamp that hovers above like a clingy parent. Winds rollicked and roared, rippling through the reeds in infinite waves. Her shirt ballooned out, an ugly parachute that was a testament to the plane she was leaping from. She smothered the hand-me-down Chiefs jersey, keeping it folded down as she trekked against the wind. The car lay parked nearly a mile behind, the hazard lights warning her of each second that she wasted in her unhappiness. After coming all this way, in a desperate plunge to escape the rooms without views, without a tunnel to the sky, she breathed in with the sky all around her.

And it stank. It was rank, foul, tainted with the metallic odor of the shackles that she had carried with her from the life she no longer understood. She sat on the curb and yanked grasses up by the roots. She stuffed the dirt under her fingernails for safekeeping, even hoping that they would infuse with her spirit and purge those persistent images with a new set that she could bear. It was futile. There was no way out. She closed her eyes against the thunder of her nightmare.