A Pointed Dream

He was falling, falling...Orion woke up with a jolt of fright to hear the sound of his mother vacuuming the hallway outside his room, the noise profound for the six a.m. silence that he was accustomed to.

Keeping his eyes closed, he remembered the strange dream/nightmare that he had just experienced.

First of all, he had been an elf...So, obviously, he had had pointy ears...

Not exactly a human mother's favorite anatomical discovery on her little boy. He had been getting ready for school when his mother decided to put a beanie on his head, saying how he'd catch a chill if he didn't wear it--it was December in dreamland. But to his mother's horror, his once cute, round little ears had become grotesquely pointed. "Like a goblin!" she had screamed.

Orion had tried to tell her, "NO Mom, I'm NOT a goblin. I'm an ELF."

"An..An..ELF?" she had asked, dubiously.

"What?" the boy had asked defensively, "Elves are REAL, don't you know?"

She had just shaken her head and said (mostly to herself), "No, no little Orion must have just super glued those Halloween ears on...he couldn't be an elf...His father is Charlie Hasse, not SANTA CLAUSE..." she had continued her little deluded speech until she exclaimed, "I know exactly what we'll do! There's this new doctor up the nearest hill...He specializes in Halloween-make-up-gone-wrong-ectomies."

"Mom, you don't really think--" began Orion.

"Get your coat," his mother commanded, "even though you're an 'elf' you might still catch a cold on the way to the doctor's office."

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And so he had been dragged to a wacky, random office that stood alone at the top of a wacky, random hill, where he met a very wacky, VERY random doctor named Jason Lawrence--but who called himself "Dr. J-La".

"Like J-Lo!" he had exclaimed, laughing, when Orion's mother had asked his name, "but J-LA, ahahaha".

Orion's mother had gotten a kick out of the crazy man's unfunny sense of humor, but Orion had been too preoccupied with worry about what was going to happen to his poor ears to care.

After a thorough inspection of them, Dr. J-La had announced the verdict: "Well, it seems to me that your boy has super-glued on the, uh, ear points."

"So what can you do for him? Please tell me he'll get to keep the ears doctor!" said Orion's mother desperately.

Then he said, "Hmmm," turning to Orion, "I'm going to have to give you a local anesthetic and cut them off."

Orion's eyes went wide in terror, "MY EARS???"

"OH NO!" Orion's mother had wailed, "My poor boy. Earless," and then she had begun to sob.

Upon hearing Dr. J-La's sharp intentions, a plan had started materializing in Orion's mind...He would have to get out of there, but how?

All of a sudden, the sound of sleigh bells in the distance made Orion turn and look toward a window that had just appeared in the doctor's office. He had just been able to make out the silhouette of reindeer and Santa's sleigh as they grew ever closer, and had begun edging his way toward his freedom quietly as Dr. J-La tried to comfort his mother.

When Orion had been able to tell that his escape vehicle was close enough, he had shoved open the window, climbed into it, turned back to his hysterical mother and insane doctor and shouted, "You'll never catch me, I'm an elf!" and with that, leaped onto Santa's sleigh, landing with a dull thud on a soft black leather seat.

The driver, he had noticed, was not in fact Santa but a fellow elf, who had said, "So, what's the deal with that?" gesturing at the stupefied face of Orion's mother and the narrowed eyes of Dr. J-La, present in the window growing ever farther away.

"Oh, well, my mom wouldn't believe that I was an elf...she thought I super-glued bad Halloween make-up to my ears to make them pointy, so she took me to this specialist who supposedly specializes in the removal of bad Halloween make-up, and then he said he was going to have to cut my ENTIRE ears off, so I was making an escape plan--when I heard the sleigh bells and saw you approaching," he had looked at the elf in a more grateful light then, "Thanks for saving me."

"No problem kid, no problem."

Orion had barely smiled when the elf had yelled, "Uh-oh, looks like we're going to be experiencing some turbulence!"

In the distance a storm had suddenly appeared, and before Orion could even yell out in fear the sleigh had tipped sideways, launching Orion into the air...

But just in the nick of time, the elf had caught Orion--by the ears.

"Don't let me fall!" Orion had shouted.

"Don't worry, I gotcha!" the elf had said, until, all of a sudden the tips of Orion's ears had started to peel off. "What the...?" was all the elf had gotten out when his confusion was interrupted abruptly by the sound of Orion's scream as he was dropped. He had watched the boy fall, then opened his closed fists to see a Halloween make-up elf ear resting in each.

"Hmmm, well, that kid really made a point of lying about his ears..."

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Orion opened his eyes, feeling the solid bed underneath him with his shaking hands. It was just a dream, he told himself, just a dream.

He heard the sound of the vacuum sputter as it sucked up something it shouldn't have, and then his mother came into the room, looking annoyed.

"Is this YOURS?" she asked, holding up a rubber ear extension, with a pointy tip.

"Uhhhh," Orion began, thoroughly confused now, "But, it was just a dream...JUST a dream...."

Inspirational Quote of the Day:

"Then he said, 'Hmmm. I'm going to have to give you a local anesthetic and cut them off.'" Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers by Louise Rennison