Grigory the Dream Factory Imp

Grigory is an imp. This is not to say that there is a sort of creature called an "imp", but rather to say that Grigory himself acts in the manner of such a creature. There are no others like him, so perhaps there is a modicum of fairness in describing him as an actual creature "imp", but that is besides the point. The point here is that Grigory is in my dream factory, and he is very much so an imp.

Dream factories are delicate arrangements, requiring regular calibration and being so awfully prone to mishap. No doubt every inhabitant of any dream has felt the results of a misalignment of mood, or the desynchronization of location, or what we call "dream-space-time". It is that quick lurch which intimates disaster if not merely an incongruous transition, when the sky goes from blue to gray, or when tentacles suddenly rupture forth from the gut of your most secretly targeted amor. Such is the balance of dreams, which skip happily along, even at the abrupt border with nightmares.

My dream factory serves all the dreamers in the county, though our output generally exceeds the mind-per-night demand locally, so we are occasionally called upon to supply reveries to adjacent counties and rarely the counties beyond that. These instances in which we are beckoned are due to both our excess and due to the quality for which we are renown. My audience experiences the lowest MPN ('mares per night) rate in the province through a combination of tightly controlled maintenance and selectivity in request acceptance. We will not cater absurdities such as sky-diving or monster hunting dreams, as others may be willing to do. These requests can only be controlled in the best of circumstances, and in the delivery of dreams, any misstep leads to a slip down the slippery slope. That said, if we are given a request by a particular individual of great respect for a dream regarding an inane topic such as (and I quote) "The capture and detainment of malignant supernatural beings", then unfortunately there is no choice but to provide.

Such was the case of Grigory. A man of intermediate fame from a city north of my county, he sent us a request by mail to be "pleasantly surprised" by the subject previously described, as if it is possible to surprised by a gift which you have indeed ordered for yourself. He would be connected to our network immediately and eagerly awaiting our service. I was apprehensive at best, but such requests cannot be ignored or deflected, and so after some time of preparation, our dream was delivered.

Generally for outright requests we receive feedback from the dreamer within a day or two after the dream has been delivered and experienced, but after Grigory was sent his product, we received no such response. Even a week later, there was no word, which I could only interpret as news of failure, shame for my dream factory. Still though, no public outcry was raised, no scathing review was posted, and dream requests arrived as per the norm. Soon, I had essentially removed the incident from my awareness.

Thirteen days after Grigory's dream left the factory, I received a letter from a wealthy family in my county, one of my most regular and faithful dreamers. While the mother and father of the family never made requests, merely choosing the dream of the night or the "Random Experience" option, their young daughter was a strong proponent of unicorns, rainbows, and princesses. The letter read as follows:


Dear Mr. Enyte,

Last night Beth says that she dreamed that she was a princess, but she was being attacked by angry and bloody unicorns which poured out of the sky on rainbows of only red - like blood. This is not the request that she made. Please rectify the situation, or else we will take our patronage elsewhere.

Nick Vrai

P.S. I would like to renew my subscription to "Tahitian beauties" for another month.


Mistakes occur occasionally, so I was not immediately suspicious, although I did wonder how it was possible for such a simple request to be butchered so. In the coming days, though, I received several instances of comparable feedback, including one particularly memorable phone call with a math professor who detailed how his request to be a world-famous mathematician resulted in his repeatedly counting all the kits, cats, sacks, and wives going to St Ives. Surely this was not coincidence. I checked the maintenance logs, then even inspected the factory myself, finding nothing but a strange empty bottle lying in a corner. The complaints were still coming in, and around this time, I received word that Mr. Grigory had disappeared without a trace in the middle of the night, though nobody seemed to know which night. Eventually I concluded the only possibility was sort of sabotage taking place every evening, despite my nightwatchman's gaze, and so I resolved to spend a night hidden in a maintenance closet.

Around 11 o'clock, realizing that there was no comfortable way to stay in a narrow space filled with metal tools, I opened the door to the dark factory floor to find that it was not so dark after all. In a far corner of the factory, a glowing orange light flickered out and into my eyeballs. I crept toward this light, slowly, as dictated by the numerous conveyor belts and pipings impeding my route, until there was but a large boiler between us. There was a strange creaking noise, a sort of "scrick scrick", which would continue regularly for a time before being interrupted by a squealing cackle, like the sound of a corroded knife stabbing a chalkboard which was mounted on rusty hinges. I gathered myself and leapt out from behind the boiler.

There was a small odd creature sitting cross-legged in front of the main content control access - a creature I recognized as Grigory... or was it? Surely this twisted goblin was not the same stout young actor who was set to star in a film about the capture and detainment of malignant supernatural beings. The glow was coming from a fire burning on the end of Grigory's tail (his what?), and the "scrick scrick" was the sound of his clawed fingers (huh?) scraping away at the keyboard of the input device. As I began to consider how to react to the situation, Grigory turned to his right and saw me with his goblin eyes on his goblin face on his goblin head on his evil little green goblin body, and let out a scream laugh giggle cough that was the sound of ninety four stuck doorknobs turning on seventy three squeaky steps and one rusty bear trap. There was a sudden "poof", and Grigory vanished.

I went home after that. There was nothing to be done, as I would surely not go to the police describing the invasion of my state-of-the-art dream factory by a green imp, nor could I ask my nightwatchmen to be on the lookout for the creature. Truthfully, I held a faint hope that I would wake the next day to find that the complaints and the dream-sabotaging imp were all a bad dream, but after years in my business, I knew that that was but a dream.

The next day was in fact filled with more letters and more phone calls, though not all were complaints. A few letters congratulated me on the "creative interpretation of my admittedly mundane requests, especially on the introduction of Greg the goblin as my dream-guide". There were a pile of such missives on my desk. I began receiving requests for dreams outside of our normal range, and indeed, some requests for nightmares. Soon, a new dream factory was being built in my county, by one of my competitors, though this did not mean that my business had fallen. An article was printed in the entertainment section: "Enyte Dreams: Critically-Acclaimed Horror Production". Grigory alone was changing my demographic.

What choice did I have? The company name was changed from EnyteDreams to EnyteMares. I hired new creative directors and changed our advertising angles. We were quickly regarded as a leader in a new niche industry, with requests coming from around the globe. Imitators were spawning, but none could compare to the delicate balance of evil and irony present in our product. The difference between us and them, however, was known only to me; the nightly presence of Grigory the dream factory imp. I dared not interfere with his process, and prevented anybody from entering the factory floor after dark. Grigory was my secret weapon.

Months later, I was slowly falling asleep in a hotel room after closing a deal with EaseDreams, the largest dream distributor in the country, to become their sole nightmare-production contractor. At home, my dreams are custom supplied, based on my personal requests to my creative chiefs, but this hotel room was connected aptly enough to the EaseDreams network, which was now my network. I changed the settings to "Random - Happy" and got in bed.

Grigory the imp stared back at me on the dark factory floor, the orange glow of his tail fire giving him a hellish silhouette. He spoke not with a rusty squeak, but with the voice of Grigory the actor: "I cannot leave this dream until it is completed... You must complete my dream!" After this, the dream devolved as dreams do, with checkerboard-patterned flying whales and your third grade English teacher wielding a bamboo spear.

By no means could I help Grigory with leaving his dream, if not because doing so would be disastrous for my multimillion deal with EaseDreams, then because I simply did not know how to do so. How was I to perform the capture and detainment of a malignant supernatural being? No, Grigory would remain in my dream factory, each night playing the role of the mischievous imp, tinkering with the dreams of men, cackling devilishly and spouting orange hellflame, aptly turning the creation of dreams into the destruction of nightmares even while being forced to live out his own nightmare. Even now, he still comes each evening to affect what you see when your eyes are closed, following no requests but his own, wreaking horror and evil upon your slumber. Knowing this, be cautious if you do connect to dreams from EnyteMares Industries, because there is no way to know what hell you'll get from Grigory the dream factory imp.

**

This is my first entry in response to the weekly prompts activity that my friend Eunice invited me to. Cheers!

Sister-in-law

After seeing Kristina reference a "sister-in-law" on Facebook, I became confused, since I knew that she was not married. (She is a law student.)

me: i'm looking at your pictures
and i have to say
you have no sister in law yet

Kristina: ?
sister in law?
like black friend?

me: wait
how is
your black friend
your sister in law

Kristina: like.. "sista"
....

me: -_-


Later, after accusing her of trying to make up a phrase that was already a phrase, I realized that she actually did have a sister-in-law; her brother is married.