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Gazette contributors present their darkest nightmares

A childhood nightmare.(Photo supplied by John Hillman)
A childhood nightmare.(Photo supplied by John Hillman)

Graeme Benjamin, Sports Editor

You ever see Matilda? Well, for those of you that have a life, it’s a film starring Danny De Vito and Rhea Perlam about a girl genius that has the power to change the structures of the world around her with her mind.

Freaky enough already, right?

When her parents make her go to a new school, she’s introduced to Mrs. Trunchbull – a terrifying witch-like principal who makes children endure the most bizarre punishments. She locks children away in a tiny closet filled with rusty nails so they can’t move. She made a kid eat a 20-pound cake by himself. She even threw a girl out the window by her pigtails. How this movie was only rated PG, I’ll never understand.

I had freakin’ nightmares about the Trunchbull for years. I’ve never forgiven my older sisters for making me watch it.

I wish I was kidding, but to this day I’ll fall into a deep, dark slumber involving ol’ Trunchbull. It’s not what happens in the nightmare that’s the scary part. It’s what happens after. Following my nightmare with the Trunch, I’ll think I’m awake and for some reason and immediately walk up to my mirror. The mirror’s reflection is not the skinny 21-year-old white boy I’ve come to know and love. Instead, it’s the Trunchbull. I turn into the Turnchbull.

And let me tell you. There is absolutely nothing in this lifetime that’s more terrifying than that.

 

Robyn Moore, Arts Contributor

Imagine a typical suburban house on a sunny spring day where a blonde, little girl sits playing with her dolls in the front yard.

This is the way it always starts, the reoccurring nightmare from my childhood.

All seems well as young Robyn plays with her dolls under the bright blue sky when suddenly the clouds race in from every direction to block out the sun. The winds pick up speed and strength, swaying the bushes that line the yard.

Worrying about the changing weather, I look up to the sky to see the clouds angrily swirling above me when I hear a sound like footsteps coming from beyond the bushes. I peer between the branches and leaves of the bushes that hide the hill beside my house.

Up the hill, through the bushes and trees it came. It crashed down upon the branches until it reached the crest of the hill, my front yard where I sat, frozen in fear. The manifestation of my greatest fear stood before me.

A spider the size of my house, with its eight hairy legs surrounding me began to lower itself to me, its eyes staring into my soul and the moment before it grabs me I wake up safely in my bed with a healthy fear of spiders.

 

William Coney, Arts Contributor

One of the nightmares which I remember most distinctly from my youth took place when I was about five or six years of age.

I found myself on Sesame Street, the neighbourhood which every child knows and loves, appreciating some time with my favourite character Oscar the Grouch. Things were Green and Rotten, just as he liked it. Anyways, we were having fun, until Elmo showed up, and all of a sudden broke out with a spring knife. Understandably, I was quite frightened of this, and Elmo gave off a smile and a run which is so characteristic of him.

I ran – I ran to a nearby vacant building, with deteriorating ceilings and floors, an old fashioned tenants or projects building from someplace like New York City, which is quite odd considering I was born and raised in the rural exburbia. Either way, rushing up the flights of stairs, through the 3rd, 4th, 5th floor – until I was cornered in the hallway. My only recourse was to slide down a nearby laundry chute (which I’ve never seen in real life), but Grover was waiting there.

Then, in my moment of need, Buzz Lightyear showed up, with his Laser Beams, Wings, and his Bravado. And like any other hero, he managed to save the day.

All in all, it was a pretty strange dream all things considered – but it’s surreal, I’ve never had a dream as memorable since.

 

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