Shrieks from the Basement

So Rachel is insane. Not because she is afraid of balloons and gross monster bugs. And not because she can't visualize anything. Those things are just funny/normal/bizarre. She is really only crazy when she is "sleeping." I say it with quotes because she has normal human sleep mode but also her own unique brand of crazy Rachel sleeping. She might look awake and act awake, but she ain't awake. And by act I mean act out. Usually she just shouts in her sleep about some nightmare she is going through (especially at 5am). Usually the pattern is something like, "No don't . . . ."

I only have myself to blame (at least that is Rachel's prognosis) for this last one. I was finishing reading or Facebooking or blogging or some such nonsense on the computer. So I was about to turn off the light. I saw Rachel looking awakish. So as a joke I said, "OK I'm going to work now. I'll see you later." She freaks out and shouts over and over while clutching me in her death grip, "No don't leave me!"

It's half an hour later and she still hasn't released me even to go turn the light off. I manage to break free long enough to turn the light off. She keeps begging me not to leave her. She wants to know why I don't love her. "Is it because I am fat?"

"You're not fat and I love you. I am not going anywhere."

"Is it because I'm not green?"

"No sweetie, I like that you aren't green."

"Is it because I'm purple?"

It's at least another hour of this before she stops asking me to stay. But it's my fault of course for tricking her into thinking I was "leaving" her. I also almost won my revenge by saying, "OK, I'll promise to stay if you take a shower with your clothes on (the idea that the shower would wake her up and I could sleep). She somehow guilted me into "staying" unconditionally.

Of course she conveniently remembers nothing of any of this (I should record her for scientifically hilarious sake). The next night while I was in passionate slumber, she snuck off to snooze in the living room, thinking she might save me some lost sleep. I woke up at the usual screaming hour (my internal clock knows when it's time to shake Rachel awake) and she wasn't there. But luckily I found her and dragged her to back to our boudoir where her nightmares belong: right next to my ear. It's really no big deal. I think she will grow out of it in a few years. And if not, I can live with a few dozen blood curdling screams every single night for the rest of my life.

I wonder what our upstairs neighbors think of the shrieks coming from the basement.