Another dream...
The house was meager, typically musty, befitting the resident who spent most days in her white-washed rocker. Her graying hair reeked of cigarette smoke even though she had given up the habit years ago; old age clung to her fading flowered robe. Her sleek, grey tabby made his abode the comfort of her lap, gnarled hands stroking his shiny coat as he purred in contentment.
Oak shelves lined the four walls of her living room, the one collection item for the last fifty years displayed in pristine condition, chronologically positioned in perfectly straight rows. Michael Jackson, her one obsession.
I was her keeper, the one to watch over her in her old age, to ease the inevitable coming of death. The dolls unnerved me a bit, but they made her happy, so I dutifully cleaned them each day, polishing their plastic surgery-ravaged faces and dusting the records plastered on the otherwise bare walls. I shuddered as his black eyes bore into mine, the turned up tip of his nose inches from my face as I cared for my ward’s one love.
I never understood why she lived for the modern King of Rock, but I made good money and I wanted to ease her death as much as possible. I thought she was a sweet old lady. That fateful day came, however, when Michael Jackson was the target of death’s skeletal pointed finger, and the tenant of the rocking chair fell into the depths of despair.
Life held no more joy for her, and she begged me daily to end her life. I refused, horrified at the idea that someone could truly put their life’s worth into a stranger, and a psychotic one at that. I continued to protest her supplications, until one day I couldn’t stand staring into her listless eyes and so I relented, asking what it was she wanted from me.
I listened in revulsion as she detailed the best way to kill her, the way that would ensure she succumbed to the same fate as her idol. I was to take her favorite Michael doll, she said, the one with a porcelain face, and the big hammer from beneath the counter.
“Smash the head,” she said, her icy blue eyes wide above the hollow of her cheeks.
And so it was set. I waited until she went into her front yard, one that stood at the end of a cul-de-sac, visible to the rest of the neighborhood. I was nervous that I would get caught, certain that a passerby would see her in the throes of death and as her sole caretaker, I knew I would be the main suspect.
Hurriedly I gathered the necessary tools and waited until I saw the sun go behind the grey clouds and raising the hammer high, I brought it down upon the disfigured glass face of MJ.
It shattered into a hundred pieces and I heard a thud in the front yard. Tears were streaming down my face as I used Windex and paper towels to rid the hammer of my fingerprints and picked up the shards of broken porcelain from the shag carpet.
I heard a meow and through the front door I caught the lime stare of her grey feline, scarlet blood dripping from the corners of his mouth as I realized in disgust that he was drinking the lifeblood of his dead owner. I screamed at the tabby, running towards the yard, skidding to a stop as a black sedan pulled into the drive and a terror-crazed woman got out to help the old lady.
I ran outside, yelling at the woman to call 9-1-1. My yell was cut short as I watched the woman I had just brutally murdered get up from the ground and walk towards me. Her head was patched back together, bloody red lines zig-zagging across her face where the pieces of flesh had magically healed themselves.
I saw malice in her gaze and she smiled evilly as she said in a high-pitched tone, “Someone is going to jail!”
I realized she had filmed the entire thing with a hidden camera, and I knew my life was over.
And then I woke up.
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