Blog @ Work

Jack woke up in the middle of the night having a nightmare. Sweat all over his body, heart pounding, drunken with sleep. He tried to hold on to the dream, but it evaporated in his mind.

There was an image though that kept creeping up in his consciousness, luring him out of bed into the cold. The image of a blond with long hair wearing a witch cap. Not particularly beautiful because of the orange glow in her eyes. Jack shivered. He walked to his study, fetched a blank piece of paper and began to draw.

If he could capture the girl, maybe he could make sense of the dream. With a few strikes of coal, she appeared in front of him on the paper.

He sat back and looked at her. Then he noticed he had drawn a background as well. A strange looking door of a dark house with three pumpkins in front of it. But he recognized the house immediately. It was the house of his well-to-do uncle in the center of town.

In the early morning, Jack drove his car into town, parked in front of his uncle’s house and rang the doorbell. His uncle was very glad to see him.

"I was in the neighborhood, thought to look you up, it had been a while," Jack muttered and followed his uncle into the living room.

"Come see my nephew," his uncle shouted to someone.

A woman stood up from her seat and walked towards Jack.

It was the girl from his nightmare. Her long blond hair on her shoulders like a cap, her beautiful green eyes sparkling. He recognized her from anywhere. She was the girl in his sketches.

He greeted her and shook her hand. "I am Jezebel," the girl smiled. "I am the new caretaker of your uncle."

She left the room leaving the two men alone. Jack watched her go, with a twang in his heart.

For the next hour the two men talked about family and health and when Jack left the house he looked back to see the blond girl upstairs looking through the window. She waved at him, and he could see a smile. He smiled back.

Later that night there was a phone call. It was the GP of his uncle. His uncle had suddenly passed away. Would he care to come up to the house, since he was the next of kin?

When Jack entered the house, all lights were out, except for three Jack-o-lanterns in front of the porch. The door was open. He shivered and went inside.

At the side of the bed in his uncle’s bedroom were the doctor and the girl. His uncle lay fully dressed on top of the sheets. The pale glance of death made him look unrecognizable from the man he had left a few hours before.

The girl smiled: "Welcome back, Jack," she said.

Her eyes lit up orange in the dim lighted room.