The Shadow Over Vinland sample: “The Octopus Man”
The Octopus Man comes most every night and I don’t like him. He breathes funny and sometimes he talks but it’s not words that I know but sometimes I understand him anyway. I’m almost nine and Mom says I shouldn’t have nightmares so much and if I do I shouldn’t wake up her and Dad, and I am a big boy, but the Octopus Man isn’t a regular nightmare. He’s real. He’s never here because it’s a dream but he’s real, I know it.
I started seeing the Octopus Man right after we moved here to the desert, when I didn’t have any friends anymore and the air was so dry I would wake up with a dry mouth all night long. So that’s why I remember when I started seeing him, or when he started coming, because he’s real and my brain isn’t just making him up. He comes into my dreams but he’s not a part of my dreams because I know my brain makes up dreams from mixed-up bits of memories, I learned that in school, and the Octopus Man isn’t something I remember from anywhere.
But now I tell Mom that I don’t see him anymore even though I do because she thinks he’s just a regular nightmare and I’m too big to have so many regular nightmares. So when I see the Octopus Man and it wakes me up, I just stay in bed and look out the window. Except sometimes I get up and shut the drapes so I can’t see out the window, because after the Octopus Man comes I don’t like to see the stars. There are so many of them, and sometimes after the Octopus Man comes and I look at the stars I can really see how far away they are, how far far away and old, older than anything I can think of and older than I can think about thinking of, and it almost breaks my brain till I’ll never go back to sleep, so I shut the drapes and then sometimes I can go back to sleep. But not always. Sometimes I just stay awake looking at the drapes until it gets light and then I’m tired at school, but being tired is better than seeing the Octopus Man.
I know Mom’s told Dad about the Octopus Man, or I guess she probably told him I was having bad dreams, but I’ve never told him. That’s more of a thing you tell moms, not dads. If I thought Dad could fix it, I’d tell him. Dad’s a great fixer, and he’s real smart. That’s why we moved out here to the desert, because Dad works at a place with other smart people, and the things they work on are so smart that they’re not supposed to tell anybody, not even Mom. I don’t really understand that part, except one night when I didn’t want to look at the stars I had an idea, maybe the things they work on are so smart that if they told them to people who weren’t smart enough, it would break their brains.
So I don’t tell Dad about the Octopus Man. I tell him about school and help him with the lawn or with things that he fixes at home. Fixing things with Dad at home won’t break your brain, but it shows how really smart he is, and he really likes doing it. Sometimes when he comes home he says, I’ve gotta do something with my hands or I’ll go crazy, and then I follow him and hand him tools while he fixes things around the house. It’s a new house and we’re the first people who lived there, but Mom says, It was built too quick and it shows, so Dad’s always fixing the garage door or a screen door or a light fixture. Sometimes he comes home from work and before he even takes off his hat he’s got his tie tucked into his shirt and his hands are crunching, like they’re looking for something to do.
Wow. Every time I start trying to explain the Octopus Man, I start talking about something else like Mom or Dad or the old old stars. Even those older-than-I-can-imagine stars are easier to talk about than the Octopus Man. But I heard someone, I think it was a teacher at school talking to the older kids, and she said that sometimes it helps to talk about problems and things that make us afraid because it sometimes makes them smaller. I don’t have anyone to talk to about the Octopus Man because even Mom doesn’t want to hear about it, but I guess writing it down is almost like telling someone. I just imagine that there’s someone reading this, and it’s almost like talking about it I guess.
When I’m having a dream and the Octopus Man comes, he brings his own place with him. That doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know how to say it better. Whatever kind of dream I’m having, at school or at home or even being back in Kansas City with Grandma and Uncle Robert, when the Octopus Man comes everything changes, like he erases the dream-place I was in and brings his own instead. I can tell he’s coming when it starts to change. Everything gets dark, but not the fuzzy dark like waking up in the dark house. It’s kind of like dark when you’re outside in the moonlight, and when you’re not looking at the moon everything is dark but you can see it because everything’s outlined by the moonlight. But the light in the Octopus Man’s place isn’t like moonlight, it’s a green light like everything’s suddenly inside an aquarium that’s all grown over with slime, like suddenly I’m in slimy deep water even though I can breathe.
And then the Octopus Man comes.
He’s not really an octopus and he’s not really a man. He’s sort-of man-shaped, with arms and legs and a belly that reminds me of Uncle Robert. And he’s really big. I never can tell how big because there isn’t anything normal in the Octopus Man’s place so you can see how big he is, no cars or trees or normal buildings. There are buildings, I guess, but they’re like big blocks of stone that same slimy green color, and they all lean in different ways, so I can’t tell how big they are.
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