The Horrifying Nightmares

If you promise not to speak to anyone about this, I'll tell you my story. It's not out of shame or embarrassment that I prefer confidentiality. It's just that, well...not many people believe such a wild tale.  
 
      You see, around this time every year, I am tormented by a nightmare. I've tried to stay up without sleeping but I inevitably fail at my attempts each time. It's as though I'm under some menacing spell that refuses to break its hold. But I believe I may know the source of its origins.  
 
      I've been a Buddy Holly fan since I can remember. His guitar playing sounds like a breath of fresh air to me and the 1950's seems like such a magical era.  
 
      When my first girlfriend broke up with me I consoled myself by listening to his song 'Learning the game." And his song 'Peggy Sue' had such a great beat I drummed along to it on my bed every night. I even learned the paradidle pattern I knew his drummer Jerry Ivan Allison performed on the song.    
 
      But about five years ago, something happened I can't explain. I know this sounds rather peculiar, but you see, every February 3rd the idea of going to sleep horrifies me. As though I'm cursed, I experience the most terrifying nightmares that leave me questioning why.  
 
      It happens like this....  
 
      At around 1:22 in the morning I'll sense an eerie breeze with a whistling wind that borders on being sinister. Then, Holly's voice will come fleeting by as though pulled from the fabric of time. His melodic southern drawl is unmistakable as he sings:  
 
      "You say you're gonna leave, you know it's a lie 'cause that'll be the day that I die."  
 
      As the last word dissipates, there's the sound of a coin dropping to the floor.  
 
      The following sounds of a troubled, sputtering engine descending to the ground at high speed keeps me locked in terror. My face will fill with sweat. A trickle will run down my cheek. Internally, panic will set in. A quick series of sickening thuds will fill my room before finally it all comes to a frightening stop. The silence that follows keeps me from opening my eyes.  
 
      What happens next torments me. In the dream, I'm suddenly at the crash site. I see the plane smash beyond recognition; the skid marks; and the dreadful site of the bodies spread throughout the freezing snow-covered cornfield are debilitating.  
 
      Then, in ghostly form, I see him. Holly looks at me with a fearful look on his face repeating the words: "I'm not supposed to die. Please don't let me die! Don't let me die."  
 
      In a flash, he's lying back in the bloody snow with a piece of his head missing. How can I possibly describe the icy feeling I'm left with? It's like being in a freezer, unable to move a muscle.  
 
      But the sound of that coin never goes away. I can't get that out of my head.  
 
      As the story goes...before the flight, Holly flipped a coin with Country star Wayland Jennings who was part of the band (the crickets) that night. Whoever tossed heads was the one who would fly on the plane and avoid the drafty bus that everyone got ill on rolling across the country. After holly won, he jokingly said to Jennings, "I hope your bus freezes up." Jennings joked back to Holly - "I hope your plane crashes." The rest is history.  
 
            The small private plane took off on February 3rd at around one in the morning after a show at the Surf Ballroom which starred Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens. The pilot Roger Peterson put the plane on auto pilot unaware of the rough winter weather ahead and the plane crashed in a cornfield in Clear lake, Iowa.  
 
      I wasn't alive in 1959 when the crash happened. I'm just a fan like everyone else.  
 
       Why the nightmares? I don't know. But I do know this.  
 
      The dreams have always been a part of me. They've haunted me every year. I go to sleep and then as it always does, the music dies--in the cold, silent, snow.  
 
      So now you know my story. Please, tell no one.  
 
      Oh, and there's just one more thing. For the last three days, Holly has visited me in my dreams. Each dream is identical. He stands in my bedroom holding a bouquet of flowers next to a coffin. The top is opened. As I stand from my bed I look in to find it's me lying inside.  
 
      You see, yesterday, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer.  
 
      I may have only days or weeks to live.