A crazy night-time experience

I am going to tell you a story.

My friend Ann first told it to me.  It is a true story, but I'm sure I will get the details messed up  (confession: I love making up my own details).  So although I cannot claim that this story came from my imagination, neither can I claim it as solid fact.

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it...

Once upon a time... when my friend Ann was in college, she shared an apartment with a group of other girls, and she shared a bedroom with one of them whom we shall call Barb.  These girls did all the things college girls do, like baking cookies and having pajama parties and staying up far too late, studying.

Although Ann and Barb often existed on completely different schedules, they sometimes did end up sleeping at the same time.

One such night, when thick nocturnal clouds hung between earth and the starry hosts (which would have lent some relief from the blackest darkness), both Ann and Barb lay in their respective beds in their bedroom, snoozing peacefully.

Suddenly a bloodcurdling scream tore Ann from her slumber.  She sat bolt upright in her bed as Barb howled the primordial shriek of death.

"What's the matter?"  Ann called out.

"My face!"   gasped Barb.  "He has his hand over my face!  He's trying to suffocate me!  AHHHHHH!!!  AHHHHHH!!!"

Ann leapt from her bed and flipped on the light switch, ready to face down and mangle the intruder (really; you have to know Ann).

She armed herself with a large, heavy textbook and strode to Barb's bedside.  "If I hit him hard with the book on the side of his head, I can probably take out his jaw and knock him unconscious," she thought quickly.

But as she looked down at Barb, Ann did not see an intruder.  All she saw was Barb's left arm, oddly twisted up behind her head, and Barb's left hand drooping down over her own face.

Barb continued to scream and thrash about, trying to get her face out from under the hand.

"Umm.  That's your own hand."  Ann informed her.  Dryly.

It was asleep, that hand.  Totally and completely numb.  As consciousness swept over Barb, she realized that she was unable to push the hand off her face because she was somehow missing one of her own arms.  It all started to come clear.

They spent some time massaging the immobilized limb, restoring blood-flow. 

The end