[ WP ] You need to buy dreams to be able to dream at night .

I bought a nightmare today. 
 
 The shop keep advised against it, but I ’ m old enough to know what I ’ m doing. After seventeen years of deep, dreamless sleep I ’ m finally of age to purchase a fantasy. I ’ ve got a late birthday, so for months I ’ ve been getting to hear all my friends tell tales of their dreams. They all paint such vivid pictures with their words. It ’ s as if I can see the chocolate lakes, lottery loot, new cars and perfect love stories all swirling around me in real time. All day, I hear about nothing but the pretty, puffy perfect dreams of others. 
 
 If I learned as much actual subject matter at school as I did about what was dancing around in the minds of my friends at night, I might not have failed that pop quiz in calculus. 
 
 I didn ’ t want gold bars and ocean views though. I wanted a nightmare. I ’ d already decided, and I couldn ’ t possibly be dissuaded by the plump and aging man behind the counter. I knew that telling him he looked distantly related to a french bulldog wouldn ’ t help my situation at all, but by his third alternative suggestion I was very close to giving it a try. Finally, after I had declined a magical night in Narnia, I broke him. I did so with a simple disinterested look, a long sigh, and hasty rezipping of my wallet. It was the latter of all those that really got him. The minute my hand started the retreat back to my pocket with the money source, he held up his hands. 
 
 “ There ’ s a policy with nightmares, ” he warned, his brown eyes pinning me over his spectacles “ …they aren ’ t delivered with *descriptions* like other dreams are. That ’ s the biggest part of the terror…the uncertainty of it all. ” 
 
 He isn ’ t telling me anything I don ’ t already know, so if he expected me to cower at his melodramatic speech then he got disappointed. I ’ m not sure if he was or not, because he ’ d already waddled from his space behind the counter toward the back. He beckoned me with a quick wave of his arm, and I followed him from the well-lit main room full of bright multicolored bottles of liquid night visions and into the darker back room. 
 
 “ I only have three nightmares…haven ’ t ever sold one…no reason to keep them in stock. ” Already, he ’ s produced a wooden box from a dark shelf; brushing off dust so thick it could be called a blanket. He opened it and three bottles each full of black liquid are nestled in the lining. The bottles of dreams in the main shop could pass for fizzy, colorful sodas. These smaller bottles looked like they were filled to the brim with unadulterated ink. 
 
 The bulldog licked his lips anxiously as I began to run a finger over one of the bottles. “ I ’ ll caution you again by adding this….I told you that they've been here for years, maybe over a decade…and there ’ s rumors among dream-procurers….rumors that say that nightmares are best drunken fresh, if at all…. it does n't happen with normal dreams…drink one of those today or save it for your 100th birthday and it will have the same effect….but it ’ s said that nightmares sort of…*ferment*. ” I ’ m sick of his warning, and already entranced by the smallest of the bottles, but I do hear his next words “ …with each year…the *terror* grows. ” 
 
 It appeared that his story was scarier to him than it was to me, because it was he who had to produce a cloth to wipe his wrinkled brow. “ For all I know…all the years these have been back in this room, untouched…I could be selling you a vial of pure hell. ” 
 
 I hesitate only slightly, before clasping my fingers around the bottle of deep night, which I swore I detected just the faintest tinge of blue in. 
 
 “ I ’ ll take this one. ” 

