Green Meanie
Around 1972 myfirst wife and I, and kids, were living in a house in the countryin Alabama. The house was not haunted. One night, however,SOMETHING came to call.
It was the proverbial dark and stormy night. We had learned thatyou could cut down heat losses through windows by wrappingplastic sheeting around the screens. Later I learned a muchbetter way was to put the plastic on the inside, taped to thewindow molding. As we learned that night, putting it on thescreens makes it vulnerable to winds.
It was blowing very hard, in gusts from all directions, and thewind was causing the plastic to flap against the screens.Outside, the wind was blowing trees around, causing shadows fromthe mercury light outside to modulate the light coming into theroom.
I was sleeping very fitfully. The sounds and light variations hadme edgy, and kept entering my dreams as nightmares. I'd dream ofsomeone standing over the bed or something, and wake to see thelight show and hear the noise, and it was hard to separate dreamfrom reality. I had several nightmares in succession, buteventually drifted off to an uneasy sleep.
At one point in the night, I woke to the distinct feeling thatsomething was hovering over my head. I opened my eyes and lookedup into what can only be described as a green mist. It was a bitlike being inside of a tent, with the walls glowing from thelight outside. There was something descended from the mist,extended towards my head like tentacles. I can tell you exactlywhat it looked like: The air terminal at LA Airport. IOW, it wasa dome-shaped thing, with parts that extended downward sort oflike the legs of a jellyfish.
As I looked up into this thing, I said, (rather calmly, under thecircumstances), "What the hell is that?" My wife rolledover, took one look, said, "AIIIEEEEEEE" and rancrashing out of the room, leaving me alone with my green meanie.
All this time, the image seemed to be fading, and was soon amemory. In a few minutes, my wife came rather sheepishly back tobed. She was not one to move about unnecessarily while halfasleep, and soon she was rolling over and going back to sleep asthough nothing had happened. I, OTOH, wanted some answers.
"Did you see it, too?" I asked. "Yes," shemumbled.
"What was it?" I asked (very originally).
"I don't know," she replied, "but it was green."
That was enough to tell me that we really had seen the same thing.The next day, when she was more chatty, I got her to describe theshape, and it was identical to what I saw. She said it was a dome-shapedobject, and had "tentacles" that seemed to reach downto my head.
Anybody got ideas? A thought just came to me: Ectoplasm? Is itpossible that, in my fitful sleep, I managed to generatesomething?
At the time, and for years afterwards, I thought of the greenmeanie as some evil thing trying to attack me, but I suppose it'spossible I created it from my dreams.
c. Dejanews 1995-1999