A Story Whispered by Fable
Ole-luk-oie, the god of dreams, knows the most wonderful stories, and he will tell them to you if you wait. First he will quietly sneak up on you and sprinkle magical dust in your eyes causing you to grow sleepy; he dies not mean to hurt you, it is only that you must be very quiet to listen to his stories. Once you are asleep, the dust man sits on the edge of your bed in his constantly changing silk coat with on umbrella under each arm; one colorful, one black. For the good children he holds the colorful one over their heads and gives them at dreams fill of magic. For the bad children he holds the black one and it sends them into a dark heavy sleep.
Or, at least, he did, fore he does this no more.
Why, you wonder?
Sit quietly and I will tell you.
On Monday Ole-luk-oie drifted silently to Jack’s bedside and looked down at the small figure lying patiently in wait of sleep. Smiling softly, he blew a fistful of dust into young Jack’s eyes and watched the child slowly drifted off into sleep. “Sweet dreams,” Ole-luk-oie whispered, as with careful precision, he carefully removed the colorful umbrella from under his arm and placed it over the young boy’s head. Sitting down, he gazed into the dream that his newest dreamer dreamt and frowned as he saw not a lovely dream of innocence, but a horribly gruesome tale off pain and death unfolding. Going up he saw not a colorful umbrella of dreams, but the black one of nothingness. Quickly he reached for his other umbrella to correct his error, only to find that it was not there. Confused he looked around, only to realize that Jack was smiling peacefully as if in a dream of great pleasure. Watching the boy, Ole-luk-oie frowned, with particularly warped children this sometimes happened. With a slight shrug, he tucked the umbrella under one arm and departed for the night. It didn’t matter. It always fixed itself by the following night.
On Tuesday, Ole-luk-oie creeped up on young Mary Ann as she sat drawing a picture for her grandfather who would be arriving much later that night. Quickly he blew a handful of dust into her eyes and laid her gently on the floor beside her drawings. “Sweet dreams,” he whispered as he swiftly took out his colorful umbrella and placed it over her head, frowning as he realized that it was still the foreboding black of nightmares. He sighed and looked down at little Mary Ann quietly wishing her luck, fore now he realized that the only way to revert his umbrella this time was to have a dreamer fix it with a dream of their own. Silently he watched little Mary Ann’s dream as it flickered between a peaceful fantasy of the world within her artwork and a much more morbid version. He frowned as he watched her dream slowly get overpowered by the nightmare and she began to writhe in fear. Grimacing, he snatched the still damaged umbrella away, but not before her little drawn flowers had strangled the last breath from her body. Ole-luk-oie glanced between her horribly still form and his darkened umbrella in confusion as he slowly backed away. Perhaps it needed a naughty child to sort itself out.
On Wednesday Ole-luk-oie drifted into young Anthony’s bedroom and quickly blew a fistful of dust into his eyes. With a flourish he placed his marred umbrella over the boy’s head and sat down. Watching Anthony’s dream as he dreamt of being on a ship in the middle of a storm. As the ship pitched on the monstrous waves Ole-luk-oie gripped the umbrella’s base tighter waiting for the dream to end, but it did not. Instead it grew worse as Anthony was thrown into the unrelenting waves. Ole-luk-oie had to fight his instinct to take the umbrella away that very moment, because in order to fix his umbrella he had to let the dream take its course. Birds appeared and began to peck out Anthony’s eyes. It was only when Anthony began to scream that Ole-luk-oie could not bear the boy’s terror any longer and took the umbrella away. He sighed and departed deciding to try again the next night, failing to notice the blood that ran down little Anthony’s face like tears.
On Thursday Ole-luk-oie tiredly leaned over young Elizabeth and blew dust into her eyes. Slowly, every bone is his body protesting, he lowered the umbrella over her sleeping head. Crouching next to her bed he winced as she was instantly overtaken by a hoard of writhing mice that quickly changed into a broiling mass of rats that ate her alive. Slowly he drew the umbrella away from her, dragging his hand down his face in frustration, pausing as he heard a dripping noise. Feeling the a trill of fear creep up his spine, Ole-luk-oie looked down at the child in the bed and nearly feel over himself as he rushed backwards away from the quickly expanding puddle of blood. Shaking, he recalled her dream in which she was torn apart by rats and eaten, he looked over at the death black umbrella in his hand, thinking of the way little Mary Ann was so still and the way Anthony stopped screaming so suddenly. Ole-luk-oie threw away the umbrella, shaking like a leaf. He could not leave the world dreamless, but he certainly would not be using that monstrosity to share his stories.
On Friday Ole-luk-oie eased himself down on Christian’s bed still thinking of the terror of the past nights. With a shaking hand he gently blew dust into Christian’s eyes and leaned back, making himself comfortable as he began to recite a story. Almost half-way through his tale, a quaint story about a doll’s wedding, his hand brushed something familiar. Wrapping his fingers around it, he whipped it around himself to stare in horror at the umbrella he had discarded the previous night. Opening itself with a jerk it positioned itself over the sleeping child. Christian opened his eyes and sat up looking straight at Ole-luk-oie. “You abandoned me,” Cristian intoned in an unnaturally deep voice, “Why won’t you fix me?” Ole-luk-oie sat petrified as Cristian repeated his message again and again, slowly shriveling into an empty doll-like husk until he collapsed motionless. Weeping, it took Ole-luk-oie several moments until he could take the umbrella away from the child-sized corpse. “I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over, staying in the room until the morning rays began to creep through the window and he was forced to leave.
On Saturday, Ole-luk-oie’s hand shook as he carefully held his once colorful umbrella over little Kelly’s brown curls praying that she would be strong enough to reverse the darkness that had taken over his once beautiful dreams. He held his breath as her dream slowly came into focus, a lovely dream of stars. He cried in relief as his umbrella began to regain its magical sheen as she happily pranced among the stars only to cry out as her stars turned into glistening shards of burning glass that fell from the sky tearing her terrified form into bloody, unrecognizable bits of burnt flesh encased in a crimson pile of glass. Ole-luk-oie ripped the umbrella away from her, but it was too late. Blood splattered walls. Wrathfully, Ole-luk-oie did what he should have done on the very first night that the umbrellas had bound together, and ripped and tore and burned his broken umbrella until there was nothing left except for the piteous screams of the children that were trapped forevermore in his once lovely dreams.
On Sunday there were no dreams. Fore the vile black umbrella that Ole-luk-oie had vengefully destroyed, had risen from its tattered state and found him once again. Then it had given him a sweet dream of his very own, drowning him in the blood of the children that had been sacrificed to the darkness that had created it, and trapping him for all eternity in a sweet dream of hell.
Ole-luk-oie, the god of dreams, knows the most wonderful stories and he will tell them to you if only you wait. First he will quietly creep up on you and throw magical dust in your eyes; he does not mean to hurt you, it is just that you must be still for him to whisper his stories to you. Once you are silenced he then sits on the edge of your bed in the bloodied tatters of a once colorful robe that now hangs off of him like the wrappings of a corpse and one ever torn black umbrella extended over his head. With a warped smile he leans forward to hold the rotting umbrella full of the hellish dreams of twisted children over your head. Laughing all the while with bloody tears trekking down his cheeks, he stares down at your innocent sleeping form and whispers in your ear . . .
“Sweet dreams.”
