Thumbs Up

Dreams – After another hard day at the old brain factory (that’s how we millennials say college nowadays) sometimes the only thing you can do is collapse on your bed and beg for the sweet release of dea—sleep. I mean sleep. Sinking into the covers, you feel your eyelids dragged down your cheeks, over your neck, around your back, and down to your toes. Everything goes black and then your childhood friend is standing next to you wearing a crinkled suit and carrying 17 black briefcases plastered with stickers reading “Latent Dezires and Tire Firez.” Also, President George H. W. Bush is standing next to you holding a pistol and muttering about internships. It appears as though you are dreaming. “Friend,” you say. “Moo muggets in the slip stream.” Your friend looks at you and smiles, “Let’s fly.” You both take off into the air, wind whipping past you as you swirl and twirl down a busy street. You laugh and rejoice as you realize that you’ve always been able to fly. And you’re Harry Potter. And all your dead loved ones are at the ice cream store that looks like a gigantic horse waiting to see you again. You land outside the store, rub your lightning scar, and turn to your friend. “This is amazing,” you say, slowly regaining your power of speech as tears of joy begin to slide down your cheeks and then evaporate in a cloud of light-blue smoke. Your friend turns to you, smiles slowly, and then melts into a gigantic bloody thumb-spider with the face of your third-grade teacher……………………………………………………

Thumbs Down

………………………….You turn and run. Behind you, a gigantic 1991 Buick Regal is speeding down the street, packed full of everyone you’ve ever cared about. “Help,” you scream. A large, burly arm sticks out the window and then points a thumb to the ground. “You’ve disappointed us all,” a voice says, before 17 human-sized praying mantises wearing football pads and pink thongs appear in the distance and come running for you. You try to run but can’t move. Using every inch of your willpower, you manage to lift your left foot in the air, move it half a centimeter, and then put it down again. As you try to scream, a small child walks up to you and tells you that academic advising meetings are coming up after Andrew Garfield and William Tyndale stop STEALING THE DAMN TOILET PAPER. The world grows calm for a second. The child smiles and your heart stops racing. Then his face falls off and you’re naked and 27 people are laughing at you and there are iguanas with shark teeth crawling up your leg and you’re falling and you’re falling and AHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Sweaty Sheets – Gross.

Featured Image by Kelsey McGee / Heights Editor