'Nighty Night' OR 'Venkman: Super Paternal Mode'.

A small girl gets into her large bed and snuggles in deep underneath her doona, preparing for sleep. Her windows are open and a light breeze makes her curtains dance about the heads of hundreds of still, silent toys which crouch and cuddle together underneath. Her room is lit by a single lamp standing on bedside table, and in the flickering glow, shadows run about the room, chasing each other and whispering of a land where age is nothing...where you never have to grow up. Portraits of her parents smile from the opposite wall, and in the breeze are stirred, knocking gently against the wall.

A great gust suddenly sends the curtains leaping, and dead leaves ride on the wind to fall gently upon the floor. In the darkest corner of the room the rocking chair starts to creak, and the little girl, with her eys closed...smiles. She sits up in bed, and looking between the thin fabrics which hang around her four-poster bed, spies a shape sitting in her mothers rocking chair...flicking through one of her favourite books...all in a rather lackadaisical fashion.

"How are you Mary?" the figure mutters, still flicking through the book and rocking back and forward.

"I'm fine. How are you? You sound sad..." the little girl watches as the book is closed and placed back onto her dresser, and the man grips the arms of the chair and continues rocking.

"I'm just thoughtful, Mary, just having a deep think. You know how that is?"

"Yes. I like to think. When I'm walking out in the garden by myself. Across the grass. And especially in the maze. I sit, leaning against the hedges, hug my knees and think about everything. My daddy calls it 'melancholy', I think. He once put down his paper at breakfast and asked my mother why I was sitting, staring out the window at the rising sun, and looking '..so damn melancholy'"

The figure laughed softly to himself and got up out of the chair. "Yes, Mary, that's the perfect way to describe it dear. I'm feeling rather melancholy. Rather.." Mary's friend stopped at the window and looked out into the night sky "...empty".

Mary climbed back under the covers and rested her head on her curled arm, watching the man in his long dark coat staring out her bedroom window. She was puzzled. "Empty?"

"I wish I was a child again. I really do. And that I was blind, or deaf, or lacking in some sense, so that the others were more acute. I wish I was a small boy again who was carried about in a wheelchair or was trapped in bed with nothing but books and the company of others to learn of the outside world. I wish...I wish I was an innocent Mary".

"I think that even if you were a child you'd still be 'melancholy'" said the little girl, and the man looked at her suddenly then, the thin material that sheltered the girl in her bed from the wind and blood-sucking insects making his face indistinguishable. A plain white face with two dark shapes where his eyes should be.

"True...Mary....perhaps.."

"Are you going to tell me a story tonight, Venkman? Or will you continue to be melancholy?"

A smile appeared on the ghostly face beyond her bed. " I think...young lady...that I shall continue to be melancholy. Thankyou very much all the same..." and Venkman turned back to the window. Silence for a time as sleep began to overtake the girl.

"Venky?"

"Yes?"

"My Daddy says you're a figment of my childish imagination. He thinks you are a dream. Something I see before I go to sleep at night. He says he often sees things as he falls to sleep, but they're usually on the opposite side of his eyelids. Are you a ghost?"

"No dear"

"What are you then?"

Venkman walks across from the window and lifts the curtains around her bed to sit and smile at her. "I'm your Guardian Angel....how's that sound?" he says, tapping her on the nose.

Mary giggles then yawns. "That sounds nice".

"Go to sleep now, Mary....dream" and Venkman smooths her hair and kisses her on the forehead.

Mary yawns again and starts to fall asleep. "When will I see you again?"

Venkman sighs and looks to the window. "Whenever you want, Mary. Goodnight".

Mary falls asleep.