My sixth sense

As anybody who has ever spent a night in the same house with me would know, I’m rather prone to sleep talking. And, recently, Sleep Screaming Until I Scare the Living Bejesus Out of All Inhabitants and Those of Neighbouring Towns and Countries.

It’s a little joke we play, my brain and I.

Actually I’m not in on it; my brain just likes the way I fling myself into sharp corners, hard walls and other potentially-dangerous obstacles when I’m trying to flee whatever is trying to kill me in my sleep. One time it was an ace of hearts. Another time it was a net. Most recently – like two nights ago – it was my sister.

The interesting/terrifying thing is that in the past 48 hours she did try to bring my death about...twice.

But first let me tell you about my sis: she doesn’t look like somebody who would leave her sister innocently sleeping in an 18th-storey apartment during a fire evacuation. But she did. Oh yes she did.

To her credit it was 4:30am when the alarm went off and I didn’t respond when she gently whispered “this place is burning to the ground,” in my ear. So she decided to let me sleep and trudged down the emergency stairway. That was peachy except about half-way down she suddenly realised that – holy shit – maybe this wasn’t a drill and I might actually sleep through a fire. So, in a bit of a panic (the type one might feel if one has left one’s slumbering sister for dead) she proceeded to scramble up the stairs. I like to think it played out like that scene in "Titanic"; everybody running the other way as she elbowed little old ladies and stole a child. Or am I confusing movies again?

Anyway, here’s something to remember if you ever leave your sister for dead in your top-storey apartment: you can’t open fire doors from the inside; the only way out is through the ground floor. When Kate realised this unfortunate fact – while imagining me crisping up like a fatty bit of bacon – she flew back down the stairs (probably lapping the ladies she had elbowed mere moments before), 17th floor, 16th, 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th…

At about this point the alarm stopped Everybody breathed a big sigh of relief and dedicated some involuntary facial expressions to the sweet girl who had been flinging herself up and down the stairs with a look of abject terror for most of the previous fifteen minutes. Mind you, I was still asleep and completely oblivious to the drama that had unfolded in the fire escape that morning, but my brain knew.

Last night I had a dream that Kate and Tim had left a human-sized chicken and pig costume next to my bed to serve as warning. The message: they would slaughter me.

Hours after I woke up Kate pulled me into the way of oncoming traffic. She has this in common with Mark. He also repeatedly tries to kill me in my dreams. My brain is onto something.