I was about three years old. At night, a man, with a face of many-colored melting wax, would chew on my left ear. My father didn’t believe me and insisted the man was just a nightmare.
Once, in the middle of the night, I stood up in my crib and stared at the face hanging in mid air above of the bars. Just then, my father walked through the dark hallway past my room on his way to the bathroom. I thought he’d see the face and finally understand that it was real, but as he walked to the bathroom, he stopped and yelled, “Go to sleep!”
All these years later, I still reach up and cover my left ear whenever I think of it, but surely it was just a nightmare and my father’s worldview was more correct than mine.
