Free Nicolbee's Nightmares by John York Cabot Page B

girl he'd seen in his dream life. Once he had tried to tell Agnes about his dreams.
    "Joe Nicolbee," she said, "no wonder you never amount to a darn. You spend all your time snoring, off in a never-never land. Wonderful dreams, bah! No wonder you toss all night. Probably indigestion. If you'd stop all that nonsense you'd have more time for practical things. Why don't you dream how to get a promotion?"
    So Joe Nicolbee's expression had grown a little grim and he hadn't said anything to Agnes after that. But he didn't stop dreaming. Even after Joe got a pay cut instead of the promotion Agnes was always pushing him after, he kept on dreaming. Maybe he even spent more time at it.
    For it seemed that the tougher the stark, unpleasant realities of life got for Joe Nicolbee the more he would dream himself away from them. He was that sort of a person.
    Where some men came home nights and spent the after-dinner hours busily engaged in putting stamps in books or working over a birdhouse in a basement workshop, Joe Nicolbee got to bed just as fast as he could and dreamed. It was really his hobby.
    The few acquaintances Joe Nicolbee had used to jokingly say that he spent all his waking hours away from work in sleep. Which finally got to be pretty much the truth of the matter.
    Like this particular Friday night.
    Joe finished drying the dishes and smoked a couple of cigarettes in the living room, thanking God that he didn't have to put up with his wife's stupid chatter this evening. He even got a sort of savage delight in picturing Agnes boring the hell out of some other man.
    And then, about eight o'clock, Joe Nicolbee combed his hair very carefully, brushed his teeth, put on his best pajamas, and went to bed. Joe always liked to look his best in his dreams, and took pains getting ready for them. Joe was no insomniac. Through long practice he had learned how to get right off to sleep. He was snoring in five minutes.
    It was a vast, incredibly beautiful forest in which Joe Nicolbee found himself. From the glorious rust and yellow colorings of the trees that surrounded him, and the crispness of the air and the leaves beneath his feet, Joe Nicolbee knew that this was autumn. He stood in the center of a great avenue of these trees, and they were slanted by smoky shafts of sunshine. Looking upward at the huge arch this made, Joe Nicolbee thought of a cathedral he'd seen once when he was a kid.
    It was as silent, and as cool, and as peaceful as a cathedral. Joe stood there, drinking in the smoky sunshine, letting his eyes feast on the gorgeous colors and his body tingle to the crispness of the air.
    There wasn't a sound save for the excited hammering of Joe Nicolbee's heart.
    And then a voice spoke, close to his ear and momentarily startling.
    "You are Joe Nicolbee?" the voice said.
    Joe wheeled, the clear, low, liquid beauty of the voice still ringing in his ears. Joe wheeled, and saw the loveliest woman ever fashioned by the gods of glamour.
    His mouth was open slightly, and he was almost choking on the pounding of his heart. The lovely creature was smiling at him, her hands extended. Her lips were the richly wonderful redness of rare coral, and her teeth were as white and perfect as the freshly split center of a ripe cocoanut. Her skin was tinted with the faintest tan, and her ash-blonde hair haloed a face face that beggared the beauty of the ages.
    And again she said, “ Joe Nicolbee. I have waited for you."
    "But you," Joe Nicolbee stammered at last, "you, you are—"
    "You don't recognize me, Joe Nicolbee?" she asked.
    "I do," Joe Nicolbee said quickly, "I do, but yet I can't remember where, or when—"
    "Where or when?" the girl smiled. "What does it matter where or when we have met before?"
    Joe Nicolbee stood there silently, his heart hammering harder than before. The very beauty of the girl was stronger than drink, more magnificently intoxicating than nectar.
    "Perhaps it was in another age," she said softly. "Or perhaps it was in a