Angel of Death

I have just had a nightmare, a full blown wake up sweating, heart pounding catching yourself screaming nightmare. I haven’t experienced one of them since I was a young lad. And I can remember the whole thing vividly.


It started off all very nice, I had met up with some old friends whom I have not seen for a long time. We were chatting and catching up, laughing and joking and sharing experiences. We then said our goodbyes and went on our merry way. My merry way led me home to bed, up till this point my dream had been viewed in the first person, as though I was actually there, however once in bed I observed the scene from a third person viewpoint, I was now in the corner of my room looking down at my sleeping self. After a short period of time I became aware of a very large shadowy figure standing at the head of the bed looking down at me. I started to feel very uneasy about this and felt that my sleeping half should be awake. At this point I once again became the sleeping embodiment of myself and started to awaken, cautious in the knowledge that somebody was in the room with me. As my eyes opened they immediately looked up and behind me. There looking down at me was a hooded figure with a skull for a face, immediately I recognised this as personification of Death, The Grim Reaper. As soon as I had fixated on him he reached out and grabbed at me, frantically grabbing me, attacking me, his arms moving so fast they blurred. I fought back, pushing him away from me, struggling to get to my feet in order to defend myself properly, wrestling and fighting with Death. It really felt as though this was the fight for my life, I wasn’t ready to go and wasn’t about to go quietly but kicking and screaming. I started shouting and screaming mustering all my strength to fight off my aggressor. Just as I was winning I woke. Still kicking and screaming, fists clenched and heart racing.

I sat up in bed, scanning my room. Everything was where it was meant to be with no shadowy menacing figures lurking. I caught my breath and started to calm myself. Lying back down, the images of my dream still so very clear in my mind, I started to close my eyes to go back to sleep but before they even closed Death reappeared in front of me. Like wisps of thick black smoke coming together to form the body, the skull face materializing through the dense plumes of smoke, its mouth fixed in a permanent evil grimace. It was right there, in my face nose to nose so to speak.


That was enough sleep for me. I got up and put the telly on.