This is long, eh? There are two "her" mentioned, I tried to keep the ex-wife and her as seperate as possible.

Dreams
(March 26/01)

A deserted farmyard, broken or useless farm equipment scattered unevenly around its perimeter. Late afternoon sun on a cool autumn day. A man stands alone behind a tumbledown barn. It was quite, the wind was still and the ghosts were calm. It would have appeared peaceful to the casual observer, to those unaware of the history of that place.
?Hey Sean, what are you doing out here?? A voice familiar to Sean asked. He didn?t feel much like talking, with so much work to be done. Still, he knew better than to try to put this particular discussion off. It was going to happen, sooner or later.
?Why don?t you just fuck off? Why can?t you leave me alone?? Sean replied.
?Aw c?mon Sean old fellah, we been through this before. You know how interested I is in everything you do. So what are you doing, isn?t this the Penner farm??
?You know it is, why do you always ask such stupid questions??
?It gets you to talking boy! And once you start to talking you generally speaking let things out a touch better than if you?re all silent like. So what are you doing here? That?s not a stupid question, is it??
Sean sighed. ?No I suppose it?s not. I?ve gathered up my dreams, and brought them to this place.?
?Dreams? I thought I saw something scurrying about when I arrived.?
?Yeah, they don?t much like you, they ran and hid as soon as they noticed you were near. But there?s so many ghosts around here, they won?t go far, they won?t stay hid for long.?
?Lookit! There?s one! And a couple more over there. Cute little buggers if you ask me!?
?I didn?t.?
?Looks like you got most all of them, there aren?t all that many left, eh??
?No, a lot of them didn?t make it through the divorce.?
?I did tell you, didn?t I, about keeping your dreams to yourself? Sean, that bitch you married was nothing good at all. She stomped on so many of your dreams it?s a wonder you have any left alive at all.?
?You say a lot of things, so many things in fact that you often contradict yourself. You also told me she was just perfect, that I should worship the ground she walked on. How lucky I was to get married to someone besides her.?
?That was just advice about keep a wife happy, not about dreams. Them are personal.?
?Whatever, you?re always right aren?t you. You know everything. Why don?t you tell me what I?m doing here then, smartass??
?Well, lessee, you?re at the Penner farm, so you?re thinking about old times.?
?It takes a Sherlock to figure that out??
?I?m just warming up boy! Now, you don?t have much things with you, so you?re not planning on staying. It?s not about your ex-wife, that was long enough ago that you wouldn?t go through all this effort about it. You brung your dreams in manifest form, so you must be? um? are you going to commence to talking with Abe Penner again? I warned you about him!?
?You said he murdered his family. What you said isn?t true.?
?How would you know? That?s what the papers said, what the neighbours say. What tells you it wasn?t so??
?Mary Penner told me, that?s who. She told me so herself. She killed the daughter, Abe just did the boys. Then they took turns with the shotgun. Turns.?
?Pff! When have you been speaking with the dead without me knowing about it, huh fellah? How can you figure he?s telling the truth, he?s a murderer! Or her too. What evidence did she manifest??
?The boys were cut on the right side, the daughter on the left side. Mary was left-handed.?
There was silence for a moment, so Sean continued.
?I do a lot of things without your knowledge. I been speaking with the spirits, I been looking at the cards. Most of the time I know when you?re coming, I can hide things where you won?t see them.?
?The Tarot is a bad idea boy??
?Get off it!? Sean shouted, ?You say everything?s a bad idea, and when it goes wrong you crow about how right you are. What about when it goes right, eh? Not that THAT happens with you around. I look at the cards and I talk with the others, you?re not the only one with knowledge around here you know. You didn?t even know the truth about the Penners, or about the family before, or about other folks who crossed over on this land.?
?That Wilson girl? I knew about her! I myself told you about her.?
?There were others too. Look, can we talk about something else??
?Well boy, then what about this: What are you yourself doing here? It don?t appear to be a walk down memory lane. Why did you gather up your dreams and manifest them? You could see how they?re keeping back home, you didn?t have to come here to do that.?
?I know how they?re doing, they?re dieing.?
?Oh come on boy! They?ve seen brighter days, but it?s not that bad.?
Sean pulled out a hunting knife from a concealed place. It was short, strong and appeared brutally efficient. The sun gleamed off its razor-like edge, the rest of the blade had been blackened.
?I?m here for business. I intend to get on with it now.?
He reached over and pulled a dream closer. It was the dream of living in his own house. A house and land that he really owned, not just rented or borrowed. He turned the dream so it faced away from him, then from behind he slit the dream?s soft, tender throat. It screamed. It was a loud, horrible scream that burned the ears and shook your very soul.
?Stop that! No! IN CHRIST?S NAME! What you do a fool thing like that for DAMMIT!?
But the screaming continued. Blood spurted from the gaping wound as the terrified dream tried to run. It only managed a few steps before it fell to the ground, still screaming until it grew quiet and lay still.
?Jesus Sean, there?s no need to do that! That dream was still viable, still alive! What did you go and kill it for??
?It?s not viable!? Sean spat the word out like a curse. ?It was dead! As good as dead! It?s better off this way.? He reached for another dream, the dream of having children.
?God no Sean, that?s a dream from the olden times! You, you?re intending to killing all of them aren?t you! Not like before, not just a culling, you?re going to slaughter them all! Listen to me, you don?t have to do this. Just because she??
?You leave her out of this!? Sean snapped, his voice heavy with venom ?She has nothing to do with this.?
?Liar! She has everything to do with this! You wouldn?t be even doing this if it weren?t for her leaving like she did. If she had nothing to do with it you wouldn?t have come here.?
Sean was breathing heavily, he still had a grip on the dream with his left hand, it was facing away from him. It didn?t seem worried or try to struggle, it passively waited for whatever would happen. Sean still held the knife in the other hand.
?Look boy, so she broke your heart??
?Again.?
?Yeah again, so what? That is still a strong dream you have there. There?s no sense killing it, or any other one off, just because she turned you out. You can still find a nice girl and have a couple of kids, or meet a lady who already has ?em.?
Sean laughed, a sad and tired laugh. ??Meet a lady who has them?? He mocked, ?I can?t meet a lady, I can?t find anyone. Haven?t you been paying attention? She loved me, in her way, and that?s as close as I?ll ever get. Now she?s gone too, and so what else am I supposed to do??
?She?ll come back, she did those other times. No need to kill off your dreams boy, you and her could still have kids together.?
?No, not this time. She?s not coming back, I?ve seen it. There?s just no use pretending anymore, no use trying.?
?Lookit, Sean, you can still keep your dreams, you don?t need her for that. They?re alive! Still alive! Look at that one, look it in the eyes and see for yourself. They can still happen, you don?t need her.?
Sean turned the dream of having children around and gazed into its eyes. It was a big dream, it stood past his waistline. He looked deeply into its large, moist eyes and saw what lay within. Nothing. It was a hollow shell, kept in motion only by habit. It was already dead, it just wouldn?t, he just wouldn?t admit it. Sean brought the knife forward and slashed its throat. It screamed, even louder than the first one. It turned and tried to flee, to find rescue. It screamed and screamed until it fell to the ground with a thud.
?DAMMIT! Stop doing that! You gots to keep going Sean, you gots to learn from your past and plan for your future. Plannin includes dreams! Think about it before??
But Sean had already grabbed another dream, and slit its throat. Before it finished screaming, before it fell to the ground, he?d slit the throat of another. They screamed in terrible harmony for a brief moment, then one fell, then the other.
?STOP! Why, look, why can?t you be reasonable about this??
?This is very reasonable, don?t you think? A very reasonable thing to do.?
?Look, over there, in the barn, you can still see it on that post thar. Don?t you remember carving that? The heart with your name and hers? How she laughed and smiled when she saw it? How happy you were together? She?ll come back, I?m telling you, there are ways...?
?That? I?ll tell you what I think about that thing I did, all those years ago.?
Sean marched over to the pillar, a large support post inside the barn, inside the part of the barn that was still more or less standing. He took his knife and attacked the old wood. It was hard work, but the knife was brutally efficient about its work, and soon there was no trace of her name to be seen.
?See? See what I think of it? It was never real, never! It was all a joke, a game. Nothing I believed in was real, nothing will stay behind.?
?That was magic there Sean, you?ve broken a powerful magic you?d cast so long ago. It was still strong, but you?ve destroyed it. Are you happy now? Cutting her out of your life like that? Did you get your revenge that way??
?Here, here this one is revenge.? He selected the dream of ?revenge on my enemies?, a sleek, strong-looking dream. As he slit its throat it twisted and tried to bite him. It screamed and tried to run, but it only knew how to run in circles, and it ran in a little spiral until it fell. It took longer to die than the others.
Methodically, Sean slit one throat after another. A good job, taking up baseball, learning to play guitar, reading important literature. They screamed and they fell in a regular rhythm, until they were all motionless.
?Where?s hers? Where?s the dream you had of her??
?She killed it herself, poisoned it before she went. That?s how I knew she wasn?t coming back, ever. She knew what she was doing, she?s done with me. Now I?m done too.?
Sean took his watch off his left wrist and habitually put it into his pocket. Then he raised the knife and cut his left wrist. He didn?t scream, or move, or repeat the cutting. One was enough, he knew he?d gotten it right.
A man stood alone behind a tumbledown barn, with blood pouring down his left hand. In the evening twilight, he stood a while, and then dropped the knife from his right hand. Then he fell to the ground and didn?t move any more.
?You shouldn?t have gone that way Sean, not like Abby Wilson did. You should have kept on trying. Nothing for it now is there, what?s done is done.?