〈Parallel Universes〉 平行時空

26、《恐龍家長》
我是個自行開業的心理治療師，經常面對許多光怪陸離的心理病患。有個小學女老師頂著一對貓熊眼來找我看診，主訴症狀是反覆做同樣的惡夢，驚醒後就再難入眠，這導致她長期睡眠不足，精神體力每況愈下。
聽完她的描述，我初步的判斷是「焦慮症」引起的「睡眠失調」。我逐一詢問她的生活和工作情況，很快找到焦慮來源。原來有隻恐龍媽媽，一直對她懷有成見，一再地挑她教學方面的小毛病，恐龍媽的孩子很頑皮調皮，平常吆喝著同學經常捉弄老師。而那媽媽心底盤算的，其實是如何把她這個歐巴桑級任導師弄下來，空出位置換上一個比較順眼的年輕女老師。
我安慰她說會幫她找到紓解精神壓力的辦法，女老師接受我的催眠後，我立即把道具箱裡的那些道具搬出來，跟她說：「我要進入你的夢裡，跟你一起撲殺那隻恐龍媽媽。」我隨即穿戴好鋼鐵人的盔甲，揹起一箱「盔甲武器」跨進到她的夢境裡。
我親眼目睹了那一幕，幾隻迅猛龍正在追捕可憐的女主角，她衣不蔽體模樣狼狽至極，拼命跑向一株大樹，死命地往樹幹上爬，那幾隻迅猛龍圍繞著樹幹盤旋叫囂又蹦又跳，她越爬越高，離地二十來米。
我從背後箱子取出一只強力長弓和一桶弓箭彈，跳上一堆大石頭上，居高臨下，一箭接一箭「咻~咻~咻~」射向那幾隻迅猛龍，中箭的迅猛龍立馬被炸得血肉四散噴濺。其中兩隻體型稍小的看苗頭不對，拔腿就想落跑，但還是被我的弓箭彈追上，跟著炸開成兩朵飛散的肉花。我推想這幾隻迅猛龍，應該就是她班上那幾個調皮搗蛋的學生。驚魂甫定的女主角，從樹上慢慢滑下來，她驚嚇到面無血色，連說聲「謝謝」都忘記。我走到她面前，從道具箱裡取出女超人的盔甲和彈力緊身衣，吩咐說：「你把這穿上，我帶著妳去找那隻一直在追殺妳的母暴龍。」
「妳沒看過那隻母暴龍，牠真的很可怕，我的部落屢次遭牠偷襲，族人一個個被牠給吃掉了，我合理懷疑牠已進化出人類的智商。」女主角邊說邊哽咽發抖。
「不用怕，我帶著妳去找牠，這回妳來扮演狩獵者。」我示意她把貼身裝備穿上：「這壞傢伙通常會出現在那些地方？」
「牠這時多半會在山丘後面的那一帶山谷裡，那裡有許多草食恐龍。」女主角騰出一隻手指向右前方的一排低矮的山丘。
等女主角穿戴好貼身裝備，我將一把雷射槍遞給她，教她如何打開保險和使用紅外線瞄準鏡。
「今晚，我們就摸進山谷，讓妳親手把那隻母暴龍大卸八塊。」我篤定地拍拍她的肩膀接著說：「現在，妳是神力女超人，具有可以用意念輕易控制的超能力，沿途妳可以輕易獵殺任何一隻對妳懷有敵意的恐龍。」
我帶著她，乘坐飛天機車翻過山丘，傍晚時分摸近山谷谷口。為了提振女主角的自信心，我要她朝著低空盤旋的一隻翼手龍，以雷射槍劃過牠的一邊翅膀。她按照我的指示操作，一道激光刷過那隻翼手龍的一邊翅膀，翅膀立即被削開掉了下來，翼手龍跟著是失去平衡墜落。見識到這把雷射槍的威力後，女主角的臉上終於綻開笑容。
我領著女主角進入山谷，我在前方她殿後，經過許多睡夢中的草食恐龍，也遭遇一群正在爭搶屍肉的迅猛龍，我們悄悄避開牠們，省得牠們來糾纏。後來，我們找到一個很大很深的山洞，在洞口我發現暴龍的腳印和排遺。
「敵在暗，我在明」，我研判這傢伙肯定躲在山洞深處喔喔睏，於是當下決定，先獵殺一頭小草食恐龍，分切成幾個大肉塊，在肉塊裡深埋進遙控手雷，等那傢伙次日早上醒來，吞食那些肉塊進肚子裡後，再逐一引爆手雷，上演一場「暴龍跳曼波」戲碼。計謀既定，我倆一起去獵殺一頭草食恐龍，花了一番工夫把牠切成幾個肉塊拖回來山洞口。布置妥當後，我們就爬到山洞上方的小平台，找個地方睡覺，等次日上午看一場「暴龍跳曼波秀」。
接下來的場面很精采，山洞口那隻飢腸轆轆的母暴龍，面對地上散落的屍肉塊，先是機警地嗅了一遍，確認肉塊新鮮且並無異味後，才開始大快朵頤。等牠吞食完最後一塊肉塊，打了一串飽嗝後，我才開始「凌虐」牠，我一個接一個，慢條斯理按下手雷引爆鍵，那隻母暴龍跟著在原地打轉跳起曼波，肚皮上噴出一道道血水，然後像一座旋轉噴泉似地轉呀轉。約莫一刻鐘，牠便癱軟倒了下來，只剩一雙眼珠子還能轉動。這時我招呼女主角說：「我們走下山洞，給妳親自動手報仇。」
結局當然就是母暴龍被女主角以雷射槍大卸八塊，她放聲又哭又笑，我知道她的心理壓力已經徹底解除了。這時，我才悄悄離開，跳出她的夢境，把她喚醒。
幾天後，有個三十來歲的輕熟女，帶著她的兒子前來看診，母子同樣頂著一對貓熊眼。聽完媽媽的病癥描述，我初步的判斷是「恐慌症」引起的「睡眠失調」。我逐一詢問她的生活和工作情況，很快找到焦慮來源：「我和我兒子最近不知怎麼搞的，每個晚上都做著同樣的噩夢，我兒子夢見和一群同學被一種弓箭射到，然後就整個身體爆炸開來，我兒子說那弓箭很像藍波在《第一滴血》續集裡使用的弓箭彈。我則是吃了幾塊澳洲骰子牛排後，肚子就劇烈疼痛，接著還爆出一道道血水……」，原來，這對母子就是一直找那個女老師麻煩的恐龍媽媽和媽寶。
我幫那位媽媽進行催眠，然後給她說了一則「母暴龍跳曼波」的奇幻故事，在結尾時叮嚀她一定要帶著兒子去跟級任導師道歉，因為她不懂得「尊師重道」，惹怒了正義使者…。
幾天後，那位女老師打電話給我，說那位恐龍家長帶著兒子，進到班上主動向她懺悔，並且請全班孩子吃乖乖桶軟糖。

26. “Dinosaur Parents”

I am a self-employed psychotherapist, and I often encounter all kinds of bizarre psychological patients. One day, an elementary school teacher came to see me with dark circles under her eyes. Her chief complaint was that she repeatedly had the same nightmare. Every time she woke up in terror, she found it almost impossible to fall asleep again. As a result, she had been suffering from chronic sleep deprivation, and both her mental and physical condition had been steadily deteriorating.

After listening to her description, my initial assessment was that her sleep disorder was caused by an anxiety disorder. I asked her a series of questions about her personal life and work, and I quickly identified the source of her anxiety. It turned out that a dinosaur mother had always been prejudiced against her and repeatedly picked on minor faults in her teaching. The dinosaur mom’s child was extremely naughty and mischievous, and usually bossed his classmates around and frequently played tricks on his teacher. What the mother was really plotting, however, was how to get this old-maid-level homeroom teacher removed from her position so that she could be replaced by a younger female teacher who was more pleasing to her eye.

I comforted her and told her that I would help her find a way to relieve her mental stress. After the female teacher accepted my hypnosis, I immediately took the props out of my equipment case and said to her, “I’m going to enter your dream and hunt down that dinosaur mother with you.” I then put on Iron Man’s armor, strapped a case of “armor weapons” onto my back, and stepped into her dream.

I witnessed the scene with my own eyes. Several velociraptors were chasing the poor female protagonist. She was barely clothed and looked utterly disheveled as she desperately ran toward a large tree and frantically climbed up its trunk. The velociraptors circled the tree, roaring, jumping, and making a racket. She kept climbing higher and higher until she was about twenty meters above the ground.

I pulled a powerful longbow and a barrel of explosive arrows from the case on my back, jumped onto a pile of large rocks, and fired downward from a commanding position. One arrow after another went “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh” toward the velociraptors. The moment an arrow struck one of them, it exploded, sending blood and flesh flying in every direction. Two of the smaller ones sensed that things were going badly and turned to run, but my explosive arrows still caught up with them, blowing them apart into two showers of flesh. I figured that these velociraptors must have been the naughty troublemakers in her class.

The female protagonist, still shaken by the terrifying ordeal, slowly slid down from the tree. Her face had gone completely pale with fear, and she was so frightened that she even forgot to say “Thank you.” I walked up to her, took Superwoman’s armor and a stretchy bodysuit out of my equipment case, and instructed her, “Put these on. I’ll take you to find the female Tyrannosaurus that has been hunting you.”

“You’ve never seen that female Tyrannosaurus. She’s really terrifying. My tribe has been attacked by her again and again, and she has eaten my people one after another. I strongly suspect that she has evolved human intelligence,” the female protagonist said, choking back sobs and trembling as she spoke.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll take you to find her. This time, you’re going to play the hunter.” I motioned for her to put on the close-fitting gear. “Where does this bad creature usually appear?”

“She’ll probably be in the valley over there behind those hills at this time. There are many herbivorous dinosaurs there.” The female protagonist freed one hand and pointed toward a line of low hills ahead on the right.

After the female protagonist had put on all the close-fitting gear, I handed her a laser gun and taught her how to disengage the safety and use the infrared sight.

“Tonight, we’ll sneak into the valley and let you personally tear that female Tyrannosaurus into pieces.” I patted her shoulder confidently and continued, “Right now, you are Superwoman. You possess superpowers that you can easily control with your mind. Along the way, you can easily hunt down any dinosaur that harbors hostility toward you.”

I took her with me on a flying motorcycle and crossed the hills. At dusk, we quietly approached the entrance to the valley. To boost the female protagonist’s confidence, I told her to use the laser gun to slice across one wing of a pterosaur circling at low altitude. She followed my instructions. A laser beam swept across one of the pterosaur’s wings, and the wing was immediately sliced off. The pterosaur then lost its balance and plunged to the ground. After witnessing the power of the laser gun, a smile finally blossomed across the female protagonist’s face.

I led the female protagonist into the valley, with me in front and her bringing up the rear. We passed many herbivorous dinosaurs sleeping in their dreams and also encountered a group of velociraptors fighting over a carcass. We quietly avoided them so they would not come after us and cause trouble. Later, we found a very large and deep cave. At the entrance, I discovered Tyrannosaurus footprints and droppings.

“The enemy is hidden in the darkness while we are exposed in the open.” I concluded that the creature must be hiding deep inside the cave, fast asleep. So I immediately decided to hunt a small herbivorous dinosaur first, cut it into several large chunks of meat, and bury remote-controlled grenades deep inside the pieces. Once the creature woke up the next morning and swallowed the chunks of meat, I would detonate the grenades one by one and put on a spectacular “Tyrannosaurus Mambo Dance.” Once the plan was settled, the two of us went hunting for a herbivorous dinosaur. After considerable effort, we cut it into several chunks of meat and dragged them back to the cave entrance. Once everything was set up, we climbed onto a small platform above the cave, found a place to sleep, and waited to watch the “Tyrannosaurus Mambo Show” the following morning.

What happened next was quite spectacular. The starving female Tyrannosaurus stood at the cave entrance, facing the chunks of carcass scattered across the ground. First, she cautiously sniffed them all over. After confirming that the meat was fresh and had no strange odor, she began to feast. After swallowing the last piece of meat and letting out a series of satisfied belches, I began to “torture” her. One after another, I slowly pressed the detonation buttons on the grenades. The female Tyrannosaurus began spinning around in place and dancing the mambo. Streams of blood sprayed from her belly, and she spun and spun like a rotating fountain. After about fifteen minutes, she collapsed helplessly onto the ground, with only her eyes still able to move. At that point, I called to the female protagonist, “Let’s go down into the cave and let you take revenge with your own hands.”

Of course, the ending was that the female protagonist used the laser gun to tear the female Tyrannosaurus into pieces. She cried and laughed at the same time, and I knew that her psychological stress had been completely relieved. Only then did I quietly leave, step out of her dream, and wake her up.

A few days later, a woman in her thirties who was still youthful and attractive came to see me with her son. Both mother and son had the same dark circles under their eyes. After listening to the mother describe her symptoms, my initial assessment was that her sleep disorder was caused by panic disorder. I asked her a series of questions about her personal life and work, and I quickly identified the source of her anxiety.

“My son and I have no idea what’s going on lately. Every night, we have the same nightmare. My son dreams that he and a group of classmates are shot by some kind of arrows, and then their entire bodies explode. My son says those arrows look a lot like the explosive arrows Rambo uses in the sequel to First Blood. As for me, after eating several pieces of Australian diced steak, I get severe stomach pain, and then streams of blood burst out of my belly…”

It turned out that this mother and son were the very dinosaur mother and her mama’s boy who had been making trouble for the female teacher all along.

I hypnotized the mother and then told her a fantasy story called “The Female Tyrannosaurus Does the Mambo.” At the end, I sternly reminded her that she must take her son to apologize to his homeroom teacher because she did not understand the importance of respecting teachers and honoring the teaching profession, and she had angered the champion of justice…

A few days later, the female teacher called me and said that the dinosaur parent had brought her son into the classroom, voluntarily confessed her wrongdoing to her, and treated the entire class to buckets of gummy candy.