Woke up again some time later, same thing, Giant fuckin Haystacks on me chest. Broad daylight outside. The same sickening dread in the guts, the presence of sheer evil in the room like an ominous stink. But this time I knew what was going on. “You’re asleep, you’re asleep” I kept saying in me head. Then the weight lifted and the door opened and in strolled this fucker with a top hat and a bone through his nose and his face all blacked up with boot polish. A bastard voodoo man with a crazy fixed grin and leering eyes and the cunt was there right in front of me, clear as day, as solid 3-D real as the rest of the room. There was me wardrobe, there was me clothes on the floor, there was the door and the window and there was a jauntily dressed demonic cunt with a topper and a bone through his bugle, boot polish about an inch thick on his boat race. (Years later, when I saw that DAAAAVE out of League Of Gentlemen I had a brief but horrific flashback. Seriously thought someone was taking the piss.)
Anyway, this dude strolled up to me bedside and I was sat up in bed too frozen too move. He came right up next to me and bent down to stare into my eyes. “You’re not real,” I said. “Oh aren’t I?” he grinned. “Well, that means I can’t do this then” And he reached down and grabbed me wrist and twisted with both hands, gave me a Chinese burn.
I woke up shouting and screaming again, and I’d grabbed me own wrist and was twisting fuck out of it.
I can only conclude two things from these two carry-ons: one, there is a strange land halfway between consciousness and sleep which is more powerful than anything else on hell, heaven or earth. And two, I never ever want to have sleep paralysis again. I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
