A Dream Reimagined
Dreamt on my 75th birthday, 2021
Inappropriately dressed in a torn white shirt and painter’s pants, I join a faculty lunch at work. Inside the room, I see the ex-dean’s Pekingese is peeing, once again, on the carpet. The dean is scowling and sipping a dry Chardonnay while talking to someone wearing a Richard Nixon mask.
I spot a woman propped against a door jamb. She has a thin, flat circle for a head; the rest of her is made from overcooked spaghetti. She doesn’t speak. Strange as she may seem to the others, she is familiar to me. I carry her in front of me, over my heart, bracing her so she can walk with me. She likes this, smiling as we share our very substance— our bones, our blood, our breath (such as she has).
Distracted by the barking dog, I stumble, dropping the woman on her head. I shake her, fearing she is dead. She revives, but I realize she has become too heavy for me to carry— a suitcase over the weight limit. With a mix of regret and relief, I give her to a sturdy woman with kind eyes and a clipboard.
I hurry out the door and take the first train home. I will build a whole new level atop my current life. There will be walls of windows and glass doors.
I will paint the sky.
Quartet, Fall, 2024 Issue
