The Temple of the Exploding Head

This house down the lane is just like our house, the exact same model with the exact same appointments, only it’s laid out in a mirror image from ours, a complete reverse of my house.

Obviously, to a person like me  with a percolating imagination, a house that is a Bizzaro-World mirror image of my house is a point of interest for me.

Three sets of people have lived there over the years. First was the young couple who built the house back around the turn of the century. They didn’t last too long. The next was an older couple who, year after year, maintained the exterior of the house in a pristine condition–spotless siding, fresh paint, and a thick green lawn such that a golf course might envy.

And then the house sold again, this time to several generations of a Nepalese family. We often see them sitting out on their porch enjoying the evening. They seem like nice enough people, though we haven’t introduced ourselves yet.

We walk our dog, Bella, every evening. Being a rambunctious Boston Terrier, she’s full of spit and vinegar, and if you don’t drain some of that excess energy off, she’ll go on a rampage–Bostons tend to do that. So, there we were out in the evening haze walking Bella past the above-mentioned house. The occupants were outside as usual, their children drawing colorful images in chalk on the sidewalk, trying to forget about the summer humidity. I noticed their garage door was open–not all the way, though. It was open about three quarters of the way. Inside the garage, I could see their grandmother sitting inside the garage in a centrally-placed chair. She’s a tiny woman, probably not even five feet tall, wearing colorful ethnic clothing, her hands placed neatly in her lap.

From our vantage point on the sidewalk and from the height of the partially open garage door, I could see all of her body sitting there, except for her head, the bottom of the door cut neatly across it. To me she appeared headless, and, with me being a writer and such, all sorts of story ideas went back and forth across my mind.

And then my dream …

That night I had a dream of myself making a batch of Pan de Polvo to give to the people living in the house as a housewarming gift. Pan de Polvos are little cookies that are popular in Mexican culture–sometimes  they’re known as Mexican Wedding Cakes. My grandmother used to make them by the pound back in the day. They are very light, airy cookies that taste of butter and cinnamon–my wife loves them. So, in my dream, I made a batch, dusted them in sugar, plopped them in a tin and walked over to give them to the folks.

There they were, standing outside in the heat, once again the garage door was partially open, once again the grandmother sat in the middle of the garage and once again the bottom of the door cut through her neck, obscuring her head. As I offered them my name and the tin of cookies, they directed me to speak to their grandmother. I stepped forward, lowered my head and entered the garage.

In my dreaming mind, the woman sitting inside truly had no head. She sat there on an elemental stalagmite as if she hadn’t moved for ages. The orderly interior of the garage transformed from drywall and concrete to swampy and stagnant. The colorful clothing I had thought she was wearing were actually scaly appendages of an ancient body. At her neck was a gaping, stinking maw lined with inward-facing teeth and hair all situated around a bulbous, semi-ovular, slime-covered globe that served as a rudimentary alien eye.

Things shot out. I was wrenched forward and summarily consumed in several painful bites.

So, that was my nightmare–just the sort of crazed situation I often come up with after seeing something mundane that catches my attention. If I’m going to dream something, I dream it big, crazy, supercharging “nothing” into a big deal.

copyright 2020, Ren Garcia