Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

by Thomas Ligotti

In the dream I am in my bedroom, sitting upon my unmade bed and wearing my pajamas (Oh, will you never see them?). The room is partially illuminated by beams from a streetlight shining through the window. And it also seems to me that a galaxy of constellations, though not witnessed firsthand, are contributing their light to the scene, a vaporous glowing which unnaturally blanches the entire upstairs of the house. I have to use the bathroom and walk sleepily out to the hallway . . . where I get the shock of my life. In the whitened hallway—I cannot say brightened, because it is almost as if a fluorescent powder coats everything—there are things that look like people dressed as dolls, or else dolls made up to look like people. I remember being confused about which it was. And they are lying up and down the floor, at the top of the stairway, and even upon the stairs themselves as they disappear into the darker regions below. When I emerge from the bedroom, I see their eyes shining in the white darkness, and their heads are turned in all directions. Paralyzed—yes!—with terror, I merely return a fixed gaze, wondering if my eyes are shining the same as theirs. Then one of the doll people, slouching against the wall on my left, turns its head haltingly upon a stiff little neck and looks straight at me. Worse, it talks. And its voice is a horrible parody of human speech. Even more horrible are its words when it says: “Become as we are, sweetie. Die into us.” Suddenly I begin to fe...