Dear number two (RLoTD),

You were the one that really pushed the terrifying envelope. Brav-o (said like a Heather). Longest dream with hardest-dying villain ever!

In the beginning of this dream I am sleeping in a room that seems cobbled together from (what feels like) a few significant past bedrooms. There is someone standing near the door, behind me and to my right. I try to wake my husband up, but he tosses and fights to dispel sleep. His reactions are sludgy and sand-footed. His friend Chris comes in (!) from the other room (also at a crawl), and a panicked, frenzied cloud lies between us and the intruder. The cloud is literal though vaporous. Colors move through it in little flashes. The nightmare man is enormous. A total cartoon imagining of a giant dude-- unbelievably tall, thickly muscled, but not to the point of helpful slowness. Rough edged but sharp. Pretty calm, almost happy.

I say, among many things 'Who are you?,' and 'What are you doing here?'

He replies 'I am the rapist.'

I'm not sure if I say 'What?' out loud at this point, or am on a loop of repeating this and the above queries. He repeats, with slightly more pressure 'I am the rapist.' I am convinced of his honesty. A closet door divides us, and is open with photographs pasted to the raised wood outline. Each photograph disappears just before enough recognition for memory, but the form of an old friend stays on one. Her face smiles, then looks worried, then afraid. I look at the rapist, and we start the battle.

The rapist and I grapple unendingly, with occasional outbursts from my husband or Chris. His strength is ridiculous, and my furious arms struggling against him stop dead with fear every few seconds. We each try battering him, but he just keeps fighting along at the same pace, not tiring, not stopping. The head has been blunted with heavy objects, the midsection pummeled, the throat punched, the eye gouged, the face beaten. The melee spills into a large open kitchen. At some blissful point the police have been called, and run up the stairs like we're filming a speakeasy raid scene for some thirties gangster movie. Police fire on the rapist but he only staggers for a moment. I take a knife from the block as he comes toward me undeterred by his many bullet wounds. At this point in the dream it occurs to me that the phrase 'the rapist' is used to much comic effect as the word for 'therapist' in the prodigiously talented Maria Bamford's series The Maria Bamford Show. Though this is a very interesting development a satisfactory exploration is not forthcoming (ha ha).

In a room full of the previously able-bodied we carry on unhindered. This is when the stabbing happens. I stab the rapist in the back repeatedly, in a loose, frowny parenthesis of strokes. The knife changes intermittently (not the K-BAR! too scary! too unwieldy! This chef's knife is huge!) before settling on remaining a switchblade. Much better. Small, sharp, easy to cut deeply. Ugh. He drags himself along the floor with me on top of him trying to choke him out.

The last thing I remember is having his head cradled in my arms, speaking softly into his ear 'It's o.k. Please. Let go. Let go. I'm sorry. I'm sorry,' and the like over and over while i choked him. The feeling of intimacy was deep, and carried incredible sadness.

How's that for liberation?

Well, no rest for the weary,

The D.L.