Once twenty or so years ago I awoke in a fright with a
demon on my bed. My eyes opened, I was awake with my bedroom around me,
but the demon didn’t fade with my dreams, it was still there squatting
on the foot of the bed. It was a brown demon, two feet high and of
stocky build, but with disproportionately long arms that would have fit
a man of average height; in short a little brown demon. But after a
second or two it faded and disappeared, until I was no longer sure that
it wasn’t the lingering end of a bad
dream.
Last
week the demon reappeared. In identical circumstances it squatted on the
foot of my bed as I lay sleeping. I have the impression it may have been
there a while, silent and staring, but I became aware of its presence
only all of a sudden, and startled and horrified I was roughly thrust
towards the waking state, for it was a
nightmare.
I sat
up in terror staring at the creature and in so doing frightened it
terribly. It uttered a cry of fear that sounded to me something like the
snort of a wild boar. The snort was very audible even though I was now
fully awake, and I realized with renewed alarm that in fact the sound
was issuing from me. For I was snorting in terror in my nose and throat,
a kind of forced frenzy of frantic snoring, as I leapt into wakefulness
at the demon. It was somehow nevertheless true that it was the demon’s
own voice as it leapt like a frog towards me and over top of me,
frightened out of its wits and immediately disappearing in a space of
air somewhere behind my head. I could not of course see it disappear
behind me, but I knew it was so; besides all dreams vanish sooner or
later.
Just
above the ceiling of my bedroom is the bedroom of the couple who live in
the upstairs apartment. Unfortunately the sound insulation is quite poor
between us, and I heard the woman upstairs turning in her bed, and then
she was talking to her husband. I am sure she had heard the demon’s
ungodly voice, and I imagine her seriously frightened. There was a short
discussion between the couple; judging by the tone of his voice he was
trying to reassure her.
A
couple of days later I was outside chatting with the landlady from next
door who was doing spring work in her garden, when the woman from
upstairs pulled out of the driveway in her car and drove past us in the
yard. I tried to catch her attention for a brief and friendly greeting
as we have done in the past, but she seemed very intent on the road
before her and looked neither at me nor at the landlady as her car
gathered speed.