Summoning Angels

While I was at college, I lived in a dorm where most of the beds were elevated on A-frames to within a couple of feet of the ceiling. This was done to allow more space within rooms, since they were quite small to start with. One night, during my freshman year, I fell asleep in my bed while my room-mate worked at his desk, tucked below his bed at his desk on the opposite side of the room.

I remember dreaming that I had found a very old piece of vellum with what appeared to be an Enochian Chant written on it. These chants were used in the Middle Ages to summon angels, and are beautiful pieces of vocal composition. I began to sing the chant (confirming that this was a dream, because I cannot read music, much less hold a tune). When I got to the end, I was disturbed to find that I had just sung the chant to summon Lucifer.

Sometime later, I was lying on my stomach awake in the dark, and I felt something approaching. When I picked up my head and looked, a great big bat landed on my face! With a start, I woke from that dream, to find myself back at in my room, with my room-mate's desk light still on, but with him nowhere to be found. Instead, sitting on the end of my bunk bed was a very old, wrinkled man, who held out a bony, freckled hand. He said, quite pleasantly, "Shake the hand of Satan."

I watched with amazement as my hand moved out to grasp his -- without my being able to stop it. And then it was all gone, and I woke up the next morning. I asked my room-mate whether he had noticed anything strange the night before, and when he replied that nothing had happened, I explained my dreams. He told me he had not left the room at all, and had gone to bed quite soon after I had last spoken to him, turning out his light.

I tried to convince myself that this had all meant nothing, but I did spend the next days wondering about that handshake. I had a very creepy feeling that I had just done something that would not do me very well in the near future. Luckily, nothing did happen, and I was able to file this event away under "strange (nested) dreams," but I often wonder what would have happened to me mentally had some other strange chance occurrence come to pass while I was affected.

Should I ever find out that such an Enochian Chant exists, I will be sure never to read it.

The Cactus Ball:

My wife and I walked into the grand ballroom: parquet floors gleamed under candle-laden chandeliers, white panelled walls reached high up to the ceiling. There were a few guests, but the floor was mostly occupied by... cacti.

Some of these succulents were quite tall, reaching up to our shoulders. Most were shorter, about waist high, and there were some about knee high. Most were of the columnar type. We did not spot any chollas or prickly pears. As we looked more carefully, we noticed that there were no pots. All of the cacti were in fact sitting directly on the floor, and they had no roots at all. Small buds were present at their bases, keeping them upright.

Stranger still, as we stared at this strange promenade, we noticed that the cacti were moving very, very, slowly: a stiff, prickly procession around the centre of the elegant room. It was a cactus ball.

The opposite doors opened, and we made our way through the creeping green and grey crowd towards the next room, eager to see what was next. But just as we approached the threshold, a wind started to blow, and all the candles went out at once. A dim green glow came from the ceiling, which was covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. The wind blew harder and harder, and we could see the chandeliers swinging as the air rushed around and around, like a tornado in a box. Soon, it was hard to stand, and I began to worry that we would not be able to hang on. The cacti were still stolidly moving, implacably orbiting, immune to the tempest.

Suddenly, we lost our grip, and the wind picked us up and began to push us backwards around the room. As we began to go faster, I worried that we would eventually encounter one of the cacti, and I did not look forward to a back full of spines. Of course, that encounter immediately occurred, and I shuddered as I felt the impact. Then another, and another, as we were whirled mercilessly through the needled forest.

---

And just as suddenly, the wind was gone, the candles came back up, and the doors flew open, and more guests came in at a frenetic speed. People swarmed about, moving at breakneck pace, darting here and there, as if on fast forward. I tried to speak, to look about for my wife, but I couldn't. I was now one of the cacti.