Dreamt awake

11:45pm, 10 May 2010, I awake screaming from a dream; last thing I remember from it is the dead ghostly face of my grandmother. Her final attempt to scare me, her dark skin wrinkled and leathery, now pale with no sign of life, tiny creases around her lips - vacant eyes aglow, white, with no pupils. Am at her house, but it's not her house - we're there, my mom, dad and some faces I don't know; I arrive with Sofie but then she disappears, but my thoughts and attention are not on her so I don't mind.

My father makes a joke which my mother does not like, she is visibly annoyed at him like she usually is; but I find my father's crack at her expense quite amusing. Then out of nowhere granny materializes. She is preceded by a scent; something ancient, like incense from some pagan ritual, it's distinct, it must be the smell of death. She is wearing a black dress with black embroidered flowers, black veil over her head - she is lamenting her death, sorrowfully weeping, "I'm 2 feet under" she says; "I down there..." I am unmoved by her story, her plight; I never cared much for her story - hers and mine was never a relationship of love; there was never a relationship. She is staring me in the face as she laments to me and I walk away from her - my action angers her. Some how she is now hovering over me - I try to look up at her to confront her but she restrains me. I feel the rage from my dislike for her overwhelm me - it is stronger than her supernatural force to hold me down against my will, I turn my upper body towards her - she wails at me like a banshee, bright white light beams from her eyes and mouth; I reach out my hands and grab hold of her black dress and begin to pull on her with all my might - pulling her down from over me - I scream, I feel the struggle, her force, I hear myself scream from beyond the unconscious of sleep.

"You ok?" Sofie touches my feet - I'm wide awake now, not a hint of slumber in my body. Wide awake with the vision of death staring down at me - I am not afraid, I lay there, annoyed, defiant - I am not afraid.

Sitting here now 12:16am, 11 May 2010. Other than giving birth to my mother some 60 odd years ago, I now have one other thing to thank my grandmother for - in her death, she reached from out the grave to disturb my sleep, and give me a reason to hit the books, more alert than I've been for the entire day. I suppose I should say thank you granny - it would be the first time those words ever came from my thoughts to her whatever.