Dream So Bad | Sean Ennis

I had a dream so bad I couldn’t tell Grace about it and Grace was in it! That my mind could concoct—that it would make me believe—I mean, I worry.  My father tells my son, Gabe, a story about hiding in the woods from soldiers when he was a boy and eventually escaping to the freedom of Water Valley. It is a lie, of course. My father has lived in Philadelphia his whole life, and there is no history to hang this tale on. Still, what was once a story of adventure for a child has become a strange, political joke that Dad insists on on holidays. Our family was never refugees in this specific sense! There is the belief that someone played drums in the Civil War, but I haven’t swabbed my cheek and gotten that confirmed. Ok, in the dream, I was being shown how to do something new, being talked into it, something I had never done. There was, like, an instruction manual and some encouragement. Let’s just say if I did this thing, in real life, I would not just be weird, but monstrous. So twisted, so vile. Have you seen this trick? Ricky filled an empty vodka bottle with water and took massive swigs at a stranger’s party. People thought he might die, haha. “Are you Sally Ullman’s former supervisor?” I am not. “Can you provide a reference?” She apparently has difficulty with email contacts, but my generalized and optimistic faith in humankind tells me she should be hired.  

Sean Ennis is the author of CHASE US: Stories (Little A) and his work has appeared in Pithead Chapel, Diagram, New World Writing and Hobart. More of his work can be found at seanennis.net