Monday, July 09, 2001

When I was very young my first terrifying nightmares involved a sinister character that I named Mr. Whisper. This name came about because I would always be in a normal setting doing everyday things when I’d open a door and this creep would be staring back at me. Now, the whisper part comes in to play because that is how this ghoul communicated with me. He would start talking in his raspy hiss and it would always paralyze me with fear. I would try to run but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. Screaming seemed like the best idea but he seemed to have that shut off as well. One particularly scary dream that I’ll never forget took place while I was getting ready to take a bath. My mom was just outside the open door because I could see her reflection in the bathroom mirror. So I wasn’t really paying attention when I opened the cabinet up to get my tub toys. Curled up inside the cabinet holding my plastic submarine (which only worked for one bath because you ran out of the fizzing pills right away) was my old friend whisper. Unable to speak or move and my mom was cleaning something just outside the bathroom (don’t ask, the woman was always cleaning something) I woke up drenched in sweat. As fate would have it the twilight zone came to my rescue. While everyone else watching that particular rerun was scared of the little kid that controlled his entire environment, I was fascinated. This was perfect because the only place that I was in almost total control of were my dreams. Sure, I couldn’t repeat the flying dream or avoid the underpants dream but I had the ability to take more control. You also need to know that my favorite comic book character was the green lantern. There were a lot of reasons but it boiled down to the fact that I could be called on one day to wear the ring. Everybody knew that only lantern fans would get the call so I remained loyal. Anyway, this ties in because I used similar powers to start screwing with Senior Whisper. After a couple of months I got to the point where I was calling him out before I went to sleep. I actually sat down to draw whisper in college and couldn’t finish. If I ever do I’ll find a way to post it. Sleep tight. 12:00:00 AM    says you