Fatal paterfamilias.
Woke up from my afternoon nap yesterday (Saturday, 23 November) in the midst of a disturbing dream: my father was calmly, almost cheerfully, trying to kill me, as he said that I was such a towering disappointment and regret to him.
He had enlisted the aid of two or three of the more thuggish and rough-looking of his Mexican (or Mexican-American; not sure which) buddies; as far as I know, he doesn't have any such compañeros, thuggish and rough-looking or otherwise. I was living in my parents' big, ramshackle house, which bore little, if any, resemblance to their real-world big, better-repaired house. My wife and eldest two kids were nowhere in evidence in my dream, although my youngest was also living in their house. I was roughly my real-world age; my youngest was perhaps a year or two younger (he's 19 in RL). My parents were at least twenty years younger.
I kept trying to approach my mother for advice, and, more importantly, help; she uttered soothing reassurances, but I couldn't tell if she was on my side or my dad's (an uncertainty which was not infrequently experienced during my RL growing-up period).
He cited, with approval, the ancient Roman law, extant to at least the 1st century B.C., of a father's right to slay his child for disobedience or out of disappointment. While I've often suspected my RL father's affection for this law, I've never actually asked him about it. For obvious reasons.
What was most horrifying about the dream was my uncertainty as to whether my father didn't have a point after all. My waking thoughts often wander down these discomfiting and unproductive channels.
These are the shapes of my nightmares: existential dread and horror, rather than ghosties, ghoulies, cosmic abortions (á la Lovecraft), Saw- or Dexter-like psychos, or apocalyptical tangos. I'd prefer Door Number Two to Door Number One; the contents of Door Number One aren't as easily shaken off.
Oddly enough, in the RL, I'm largely indifferent to or outright bored by traditional horror tropes, even Lovecraftian ones.
Damn. Does anyone ever recover from their childhood, ever?
Forget the "birth trauma" bushwah; childhood, "growing up," is the real scarring and scarifying mindfuck.
"The horror; the horror...."
He had enlisted the aid of two or three of the more thuggish and rough-looking of his Mexican (or Mexican-American; not sure which) buddies; as far as I know, he doesn't have any such compañeros, thuggish and rough-looking or otherwise. I was living in my parents' big, ramshackle house, which bore little, if any, resemblance to their real-world big, better-repaired house. My wife and eldest two kids were nowhere in evidence in my dream, although my youngest was also living in their house. I was roughly my real-world age; my youngest was perhaps a year or two younger (he's 19 in RL). My parents were at least twenty years younger.
I kept trying to approach my mother for advice, and, more importantly, help; she uttered soothing reassurances, but I couldn't tell if she was on my side or my dad's (an uncertainty which was not infrequently experienced during my RL growing-up period).
He cited, with approval, the ancient Roman law, extant to at least the 1st century B.C., of a father's right to slay his child for disobedience or out of disappointment. While I've often suspected my RL father's affection for this law, I've never actually asked him about it. For obvious reasons.
What was most horrifying about the dream was my uncertainty as to whether my father didn't have a point after all. My waking thoughts often wander down these discomfiting and unproductive channels.
These are the shapes of my nightmares: existential dread and horror, rather than ghosties, ghoulies, cosmic abortions (á la Lovecraft), Saw- or Dexter-like psychos, or apocalyptical tangos. I'd prefer Door Number Two to Door Number One; the contents of Door Number One aren't as easily shaken off.
Oddly enough, in the RL, I'm largely indifferent to or outright bored by traditional horror tropes, even Lovecraftian ones.
Damn. Does anyone ever recover from their childhood, ever?
Forget the "birth trauma" bushwah; childhood, "growing up," is the real scarring and scarifying mindfuck.
"The horror; the horror...."