Melisa Miller, Week Six, Story Nine

Sheep and Other Barnyard Animals

Sometimes you can’t sleep. Sometimes you toss and you turn and you wrap the sheets around you like a cocoon. Sometimes you count sheep, or sometimes pigs or other caricatured barn yard animals. Sometimes they trip over the fence. Sometimes they get their foot caught between the rungs and snap their little lamby legs. Sometimes they die.
And sometimes in those moments between waking and sleeping you have half controlled, half sporadic dreams. They often contain a combination of things on your conscience and things somewhere beyond. You might be at your favorite restaurant and the guy you like from afar comes up and smiles at you. He says hello and introduces himself. You give him one of those cute little flirty eyelash battings and shake his hand. You hold on for a little longer than any normal hand shaking and a spark travels between your eyes and his. You blush and look down at your pizza. After he kindly asks to sit down at your table while he waits for one of his own you tell him all your hopes and dreams and few other details like your ring size and your favorite type of rose.
After what feels like decades he reaches over to kiss you and your stomach suddenly turns sour. You vomit frogs all over your pizza and they start to jump on him. He screams and stands up. Your mother then comes in and tells you she told you so. She tells you she always has to clean up your messes and hands your crush a large wooden spoon. Together they start running around the room hitting frogs over the head with wooden spoons. You watch him carelessly swat as he moves closer and closer to the door. You try and run to the door but giant frogs are holding your feet to the ground with their slimy green flippers. As he moves closer to the door you try and yell but more frogs just leap out of your mouth in place of words. You start throwing spoons at him but they all miss and as he opens the door your mother starts licking her napkin and wiping your face and blocking your view. You shove her away and see that he has become a giant frog, hopping out the restaurant and into the sunset.
These kinds of dreams happen to you often. You wake with a start, check for webbing between your fingers and then your toes. You get a glass of water, maybe a scotch. After settling back into your bed and counting more maimed animals you start to doze again. Partly because of your extensive sleep depravity, partly because of the scotch.
This time you picture a courtroom. You’re a big time lawyer. Not one of those sleazy take-em-for-all-they’re-worth-and-feed-em-to-the-dogs type lawyers but the stand-up-for-the-dwontroden-innocent-abused-mother-of-five-starving-chidren-and-a-blind-dog type of lawyers. You are defending a man who was arrested protesting for animal rights who supposedly set an animal testing lab on fire after rescuing all the animals. He didn’t set the building on fire though. The testing lab used him as a decoy to place the blame on so they could place the blame on someone and get money to build a new animal testing lab. The man takes the stand and the prosecutor badgers him with intimidation. The prosecutor knows if he insults animals enough the man will get a rise out if him. The man eventually snaps and says he didn’t burn the building down but he knows who ever did save all those animals would get the favor returned to him one day when one of them saves him from a burning building. After an awe inspiring speech by this poor used man, and then of course one by you defending him, the jury gets up and claps and they all start crying. The next witness brought in is a chimp from the plant who graciously tells the court in sign language that this wasn’t the man who rescued him. Then he tells him how nice this man looks and how he wants a cookie.
But suddenly the chimp sees a cage in the back of the room where they are about to put him and he starts jumping up and down and screaming. You go up and try to calm the chimp but he hits you in the face and knocks you over. Soon all sorts of monkeys and mice and dogs and goats burst through the door to the courtroom and start attacking the crowd. You try and run over to close the door but monkeys are holding your feet to the ground. You whimper a little and start to cry. You try and scream but mice start coming out of your mouth instead of words and your head starts spinning. Soon your mother is in front of you straightening your suit and telling you she told you so. You close your eyes and hope she disappears but she starts beating you on the head with a wooden spoon. You free your feet from the monkey’s firm grips and kick them out of the way. As they chase after you grabbing at your legs your mother hovers in front of you beating you with the spoon. You finally get to the door of the courtroom and out into the hallway of the courthouse. You run to the elevator with mice crawling down your shirt and goats chewing at your pants. As the elevator opens you push your mother into it only to watch her fall down an empty elevator shaft. You throw up some more mice into the shaft, jump in to save her and wake up sweating.
You get up and go to the kitchen. You want milk but fear you are developing lactose intolerance. You have some scotch instead. You go back to bed. The next day you go to work and no one says anything to you besides “I need those numbers by Thursday” and “I have an extra donut, would you like it?” This is the highlight of your day. You go home, read a good book on the couch with a cup of tea and some hot pockets. No animals are spewing out your mouth. Nothing even remotely significant is happening what-so-ever. Your life is completely solitary and uneventful. All is well with the world.