A game for little Roland, who died protecting me from my boggins.
I know I’m dreaming. See, mummies usually don’t do their Wednesday wash at my laundry mat.
“You’re right,” says my cat, sitting beside me as I pile microwave dinners into the dryer. “You’re dreaming.”
“How do you know?” I ask him, fumbling for quarters.
“Because I’m dreaming, too.” He licks his chin and watches the dinners cooking in the dryer.
The dryer buzzes and I pull out the tin plates filled with food. “So, why are you here?”
He starts snacking on the Southern fried chicken. “It’s the only place you and I can really talk.”
“We talk?”
“Well, I talk all the time. Problem is, you don’t know how to listen.” He chews more chicken and I start with the cherry desert. “And you usually don’t remember when we’re done. Sometimes, things stick in that little brain of yours. The important things, at least.”
“So you have something to tell me?”
“Yup. A few things. But we don’t have a lot of time. It took me all night to find you, and it’s creeping up on dawn right quick.”
I nod, and put the dinner back in the dryer. “Where are we off to?”
“Anywhere. I just want to get away from those mummies. They give me the creeps.”
* * *
My cat and me, we walk through a city full of zombies. Not the flesh-eating, drooling, rotting kind of zombies, but the “Where the heck am I?” kind of zombies.
I ask, “Where did all these zombies come from?”
“They’re you. Well, most of you. You know when you can’t remember your dreams?” He shrugs at the zombies. “That’s you.”
I’m only briefly aware that my cat just shrugged, almost get around to asking how he shrugged when a beautiful brunette walks by and my head turns all the way around my neck.
“That’s your problem,” my cat tells me. “You men can’t keep focused. It’s why your dreams are filled with all this nonsense.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice as far away as my cat’s voice. “Whatever you say.”
“Ugh,” he says. “This isn’t going to work. You’re just not concentrating.”
I shake my head. “No, no. I’m back. I’m back.”
“Good. Let’s get to work.”
I look up and see us standing outside my house.
“Our house,” my cat says. “Let’s go inside.” He opens the door and we go on in.
“Hey, how did you…” I realize I don’t know whether to ask him how he read my mind or how he opened the door.
“Never mind that,” he says. “Take a look around.”
I look up and see my couch, my TV, my desk, my dining room table and… things. Black, inky things with eyes and pincers and mandibles and tentacles and mouths and teeth. So many mouths, so many teeth. They’re made of teeth. Little, sharp teeth that bleed when the things smile.
“What are all those…”(I don’t know what to call them) “… crawling all over the place?”
“That one over there,” he points at the one crawling all over my favorite chair. “That one’s a Lazy.” Then, he points at the phone. It looks like a blood-bloated tick. “That one’s a Fear. You made it real fat the last time you sat in front of the phone, trying to call the girl you met in class.”
I nod. “I think I’m getting the idea. But what are they?”
“The fewer names you give them the better,” my cat tells me, licking his paw, washing out his ear. “My grandpa called them ‘boggins.’ It’s a pretty harmless name. I’ve heard them called a lot worse.”
I watch them oozing all over the furniture for another moment or so, then I ask him something. “These things are dangerous?”
“Oh yeah. Mostly because you can’t see them.”
“If they’re so dangerous,” I ask, “why are they all over there?”
My cat smiles. “Because I’m over here.” He jumps up the stairs. “Come on. I’ve got more to show you.”
* * *
I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, he tells me. You aren’t in charge. Sure, I know you like to think you are, and with your guns and lights and cars, you can kill just about anything you want. But killing a thing with a gun or a car isn’t the same as killing it with your claws, and that’s where you all fall short. When it comes to fierce fighting, your kind are about as helpless as kittens.
That’s why, every thousand years, we win the contest, and why, every thousand years, you all come in dead last. Your champion shows up all half-witted and naked, no more ready for battle than a white blister ready to be popped. You’ve got no teeth and you’ve got no claws, and you just don’t remember how to fight. It’s a shame, really. You know why? Because the less you know about protecting yourselves, the more we have to know about protecting you. That’s our job. Well, one of them, at least.
* * *
We get to the top of the stairs, and the door opens up on a sky full of stars. “Come on,” he says, and jumps on one of the stars. I give it a shot, only make it halfway. I nearly fall all the way through the sky to the water below – all full of sharks and telephone booths – when he catches me with his teeth.
“You’re better at this than most,” he says through the grip he’s got on me, “but not by much.”
He pulls me back up to the star. “Hold on to my tail, but don’t tug.” I do what he says. He keeps talking.
* * *
For as long as anyone can remember, he says, there’s been the Contest. Every thousand years, we all meet here in Dream and fight it out for the right to rule the world. Last time, it was us who won. The King of the Cats, he beat out the Bitch Queen for the rights, and her kind ain’t given us no quarter since. They’re a jealous breed, them dogs, and they don’t like being in second place.
Now, us ruling the world is all well and good, but there’s a catch. The one who wins has to look out for the one who comes in last. We won, you lost. You lost big time. You trim off your claws, you dull down your teeth and you don’t pay attention to anything that’s important.
That’s the difference between us and you. We know Dream is the “real” world, and this, the flesh and stuff, that’s nothing. We may be small there, but in here, we got it all over you.
* * *
“When did you get all mean?” I ask him.
“Sorry. I get caught up in the bragging.” We’re not in the sea of stars anymore, but we are on a boat. The crew is all made of candy and we’re sailing over soda pop.
“Don’t drink the water,” he tells me. Then, he tells me more.
* * *
So, anyway, you all came in dead last. That means you need protection. No, not from the dogs. You need protection from the boggins. Yeah. Boggins. Monsters. Bogeymen. Those things.
I know, you never seen them. You can’t. We can. That’s where the protection comes in.
Boggins are bad. I mean real bad. They hook into your soul with those barbs of theirs and they hang on. They sink their teeth into you, and they drink, and they drink. Worst part is, you can’t see it. You can feel it, but you men come up with fancy explanations for some pretty simple stuff, all because you don’t want to look at the truth. You wake up one morning and you feel about as tall as a turnip and you call up your doctor and he gives you pills and you think you feel better.
It’s the boggins that do that to you. Drinking up your dreams. Soon, they get in there with you. I see it all the time. Some man walking around with his chin on his chest, walking like he’s got no tomorrow, and he’s got boggins hanging on him like leeches, sucking and sucking. I hate the sound of it. Yeah, I can hear it. I hear it all the time. There’s boggins everywhere you look. Everywhere but where there’s one of us, that is. There ain’t no boggins where there’s one of us, because we kill ‘em, and we kill ‘em dead.
* * *
“If you’re doing such a good job, why are there so many boggins in my house?”
“You should have seen it before I got there,” he tells me. The crystal ship lands on the Moon and he starts chewing.
“What?” he says, looking at me looking at him. “You didn’t think we came all the way up here because it’s made of rock and dust, did you?”
I pick up a hunk of it and give it a taste. Now, I know why he wanted to come up here. I chew and listen, and he does his best not to talk with his mouth full.
* * *
There’s lots of kinds of boggins, and if you’re good, you know all kinds of different ways to take care of ‘em. You know the saying, “There’s more than one way to butcher a boggin.” But it’s dangerous work. Too many boggins, and even the best of us winds up losing lives to ditch the bunch.
Yeah, I said lives. We won the contest, we get nine of ‘em. Dogs say they get seven ‘cause they came in second, but who believes what a dog says? Now, go west – that’s right – for another mile or so. When you hit the Jewel Pool, let me know. I want to stop for a drink.
Another thing you should know about boggins. They’re contagious. Got them a system of dropping off eggs with a touch, and it’s bad. You gotta keep yourself clean of the eggs, or they hatch and dig right in. Damn hard to get out, too. I know you won’t remember much of this when you go back to the Wake, but if you remember one thing, remember this: them that smell bad, they’ve got the boggin eggs all in ‘em and around ‘em. I know your nose is about as good as your teeth, but even the dullest man can smell a boggin. You’ve just got to concentrate and not ignore the warning signs.
Heh. That’s kind of funny. For all your lack of skill in other areas, there’s one thing you men are damn good at: ignoring things. You never see anything you don’t want to see.
Some boggins you got to kill with teeth and claws, but others are less tough and a whole lot more stupid, and you can use tricks. Sometimes they sneak into the house in disguise. That’s the worst. Them we call “changelings.” Most of the time, you can smell a changeling right out, but other times, they use boggin tricks to sneak by you. Worst kind is the ones posing as kids. Had to kill one in the crib, once. That lost me my man. Nearly lost me a life. His woman was one mean woman, so covered in boggins, you couldn’t even see her face. Just her eyes, shining in that bright light. I’ll never forget that.
* * *
“Is that why you were in the adoption agency?”
He nods. “Let’s not talk about that, okay?” We catch a moonbeam back down to the street.
“See, I make sure you don’t have to worry about the boggins. I’ll take care of them. As soon as we don’t have a boggin problem anymore, and I go somewhere else, and help somebody who needs me.”
There’s a bit of sun on the horizon as we step back into the house. The boggins scatter under the furniture when they see him, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“You came all this way through Dream to tell me about all this?”
“That was a secondary goal,” he tells me. “I tell you about the boggins every night. Sometimes you remember, as best as a man can, that is. Most of the time you don’t.”
“So,” I ask, giving my squirming couch the evil eye. “What did you want to tell me?”
He looks up at me with his big green eyes. “Not so much ‘tell’ you, as ‘ask’ you. See, I need a favor.”
I looked over at the things staying far away from me and my little friend, and I nod. “What is it?”
“Something you can do that I can’t. And, after seeing the boggins, I hope it isn’t too much to ask…”
“Anything you want.”
He smiles and gives me a wink. “Glad you said it that way.” Then, he walks away and stops in front of that big tan litter box.