Wednesday 6 August 2014

250 Words: The Nursing Home Nightmare

Fran’s Grandfather lived in a nursing home in Kent and I pretended to be an oral history interviewer in order to get in.  Once alone with the man I came clean and asked him about the creature.

“You are the first to believe me.  The staff here said we’d made the scratches ourselves,” he told me.  “Well, it’s hard not to when I’m living it.  I guess I wouldn’t have before.”

He told me how the creature had been visiting a different room each night, frightening the inhabitant and leaving its mark somewhere in the room.  “Often destroying cherished photographs,” he added, looking away at where his had presumably once stood.

“In the end my desperation grew to the point I felt all I could do was fight back.”

“I’ve tried that but it’s always too fast.”

“You must become the master of your own dreams.  I know it’s hard-  it took a death here before any of us could bring ourselves to take it on.  It’s like in Inception: you must not be scared to dream creatively, even if no one’s dreams are quite as epic.  It is on your ground, young man, and that is its weakness.  It can only win while fear rules your dreams.”

I went away with hope in the knowledge that one of these creatures, at least, had been defeated, though not knowing why it was there.  “I wish I knew the answer to that.  Just a case of bad luck it would seem.”

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