inside the dark corners of Lola's psyche

The other night Lola woke up screaming, and her father went in to calm her down. I went back to sleep, only to be woken up again by more screaming. This was the loudest Lola had ever screamed in the night, really terrified, top-volume shrieking, and I darted across the landing in the dark.

Once i was there, Lola was quite happy to sit up in bed and cheerfully tell me about her nightmares. "First I dreamed that aliens came, and they looked like lemons. They saw me making lemonade, and they were so angry!" Lola shuddered dramatically. "Then I dreamed that I was making all kinds of mistakes with Henry. I picked him up [our tabby, Henry, is a dignified animal who hates to be picked up], and I was petting him the wrong way. You know how the fur grows." Lola took an extremely long amount of time to explain how she had petted Henry against the grain, using gestures and simple language aimed at explaining to the very stupidest of audiences, her mother. I tried to cut that short, since it was the wee hours. "Then Henry could speak English, and she was biting me all over!" [Henry, a rather butch female tabby, is interchangeably referred to as "he" or "she", and the children have been heard to remark, 'You're a little lesbian boy, aren't you, Henry?"].

The next day Lola elaborated more about the lemon aliens. "I defeated them, and then I had a lemonade party with the Congress!" But the lemonade party was not all fun: President Obama explained to Lola why he was opposed to gay marriage. Lola demonstrated how she put her head in her hands, murmuring sadly, "Obama, Obama." Then tragedy struck: "I didn't use half a lemon, it was left over, and then it grew arms. Arms and legs popped out of it!" The regenerated lemon was crazed with rage, and it was then that Lola woke up screaming.