Dream Journal : Teddy Bear Nightmare

WARNING Teddy bears will never be the same.
DISCLAIMER I am not responsible for my subconscious.

          The city was a cold, stormy mix between downtown Albuquerque and Denver. There was a rave going on, but it was outside, in the cold. The ravers had joined a local carnival and everyone looked like a freak. A big bonfire blazed in the middle of a park filled with Christmas lights and wild rides. The New Hippies had set up camp and their tents and lifestyles were all strewn about the outskirts. I walked through a gathering of wild hula hoopers. 

         A police officer stopped me and told me to go stand with a gaggle of other suspects. She looked like a friend of mine. I crossed the street and stood on the corner with the upset accused. Three women dressed like ghostly Victorian queens with white faces, white gowns, and big white wigs waved their fans at me in a flirtatious gesture. I stepped closer and a very, very tall blonde man came forward. He looked like a mixture between Tarzan and Dracula. Everyone was strange and inviting. 

         I looked across the street where the officers were gathered. More cars arrived, there were a lot of vans. I didn't want to get thrown into the back of anything. I decided to run. I turned slowly from my unusual cohorts and began to quicken my pace. The crowd began to sneer and cheer and the officer who had detained me shouted. She and several officers began sprinting toward me and the crowd. I made a run for it.

          I slipped into a grocery store and then hit the deck as I realized it was being held up. A man in a black mask pointed an AK-47 in my face and shouted something I couldn’t understand. He turned around to intimidate other customers and I began to slowly low-crawl through the isles toward that bright red Exit light. When someone began screaming and several of the thugs began shouting I jumped up and ran back out the door. I heard shots behind me. I wondered where the police were now as I went across traffic. 

         A black Sedan pulled up and the tinted window sank in front of a beautiful, friendly face, “Hop in!” She said. Her friends opened the door and I jumped in the back seat with them. They were driving toward that Carnival. I asked them to drop me off at the next light and thanked them. 

         I was alone now, walking along shops that were closed. Only the street lights were on. I looked through the window of a shop and saw a man working, tinkering, in a room. It was the only light on. He was making something. I stood at the window watching him work. The store behind me exploded and he looked up. He opened the door and invited me inside for a drink. 

“Thank you.” I said as I sat down. He handed me a glass of warm whiskey, that he’d watered down. I had no complaints. He nodded his head and sat back down at his workbench. 

          The room was filled with teddy bears. They were lovely. Each bear was a different bright color and looked brand new and soft. He had one of them at his work bench, a bright blue bear. He was tinkering with some mechanical gears in its back, concentrating. 

         As I watched him work I wasn’t myself sitting with that glass anymore. I was just watching the dream happen now. This was the last bear. It was almost time. He zipped up the back and stood from his bench. The bear stood up, climbed down off the table onto the chair, and jumped to the floor. It walked over to the other bears and sat down with them. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever seen! It wasn’t moving with any mechanical nature, it looked completely alive! I realized, as I stared at the teddy bears, that they were all quietly breathing. Their bellies all moving just a tiny bit like their lungs and hearts were all pumping. 

         The craftsman raised his left hand in a Naziesque motion and all the bears stood and lined up like little troops in a Battalion. They began filing into their boxes, their packages were opened and ready. Then I saw them on store shelves. They were in stores everywhere and every child wanted one. Every bear, but for two, sold in one day. 

         That night the moon was full and it was almost time. I saw children asleep in bed, holding their new teddy bears. Thousands of children, each snuggling a soft bear as they slept. A few older girls with tasteless boyfriends had placed their bears on shelves with all their other sentimental trinkets. Those bears stood up and climbed down, walking across the floor toward the bed in each apartment. They nestled themselves in with the sleeping women. 

         At the strike of midnight the bears woke their owners. The women and children thought they were dreaming. They were happy to follow their new teddy bear into the night. The carnival was a ghost town now. The Craftsman sat in the center on that round cement stage and watched his work walking forward, pulling along the smallest children by hand and leading the others toward him. The children were all excited. This was something magical and fun. 

         The last two bears stood on either side of the Craftsman. One was pink and one was blue. They were ashamed to have no owner and they were about to be punished. I felt sad for them. I wanted them, but I didn’t have a body anymore and could only watch what happened. 

         All the bears climbed into the arms of their smiling children and the children held them close and squeezed them tight. That’s when it began. The night filled with screaming as each teddy bear devoured its child one small, sharp, hungry bite at a time.The two bears with no owner were copulating as they ate one another. The Craftsman was laughing maniacally. 

         The Carnival was filled with the corpses of dead women and children. The two bears that had been doomed to eat one another were a glittering pile of dust on that cement throne. I was in my body again. The Craftsman was gone. I had a plastic bag and I walked up to that glittering pile. I carefully put all of that teddy bear dust into the bag and zipped it closed. I looked at the glittering contents and began shaking it while I cried. It was a slow process, but the embryo of a tiny new bear began to form inside of it. 
Then I woke up.

I realized through the tears on my face that I didn’t understand how this could possibly be funny as I had the recollection and began laughing. 

I think it's a warning to never water down your whiskey.