Nothing of much importance to say today.
But I had a dream last night that someone was coming to get
me; that he was looking for my house, and that he was more than single-minded
about finding where I lived. In
fact, he was dogged in his determination.
He was a faceless, nameless stranger wearing a baseball cap with the
shadow of its bill falling just over his eyes. I was not afraid at first, but became increasingly concerned
because of the vagueness of his appearance. He had a smile that betrayed, what I now believed to be, his
sinister intentions. His face
changed between that somewhat innocuous smile and the common cliché of a wicked
grin. It moved back and forth like
someone talking out of both sides of his mouth. It was rather disconcerting that I could not get a solid fix
on his appearance, or, consequently, on who he happened to be, particularly
since I remember some suit and tie business guy proclaiming that appearance is
everything.
A cold nervousness took root in my stomach, then rose up
from within me as I thought about this man, his probable mission, and the expected
consequences for me if he, in fact, did find my house. I pictured the 22-caliber handgun with
silencer that he would use, the one that assassins typically utilize to
dispatch their intended victims. I
pictured him knocking on my door as if he were from the gas and electric
company on some routine inquiry. I
pictured myself opening the door, and the man raising that cold black pistol
from his waistband and coolly putting one live round in the middle of my
furrowed brow as calmly as if he’d just shot me in the head with a rubber band
like kids do. I fell beneath my
own lifeless self. He stepped over
my crumpled body on his way to the kitchen to get a drink of water from the
faucet. I saw him stepping over me
again to exit back through the door, careful to pull it shut on his way
out. He glided down the front
porch steps, down the long walkway to the curb, and slid rather gracefully
behind the wheel of a car as vague in my mind as the man’s own face had been in
my doorway.
What I had pictured had not yet actually happened in my
dream. It was just my instinctual
summation of what was about to happen.
As the dream continued I found myself at the kitchen table ruminating
over a cup of old reheated coffee, mouth parched and dry at the thought of being
found by this man.
And then, as I lifted the cup to my mouth for that first
sip of nerve- calming relief, and the hope of drinking in even a small
measure of courage, I heard a faint, but distinct knock on the door. I was trembling like a rabbit cornered
by a fox in the willows when a voice in some kind of eastern European accent
calmly, but with very deliberate clarity, called to me through the door, “Mr.
McIntosh, I’m here.”
I began shaking even more vigorously, like the proverbial
wet dog, and thought frantically about where I could hide. But I held my breath, frozen to my
chair, scared to even set my cup of coffee back down on the table for fear of
being heard, when a second knock came louder, even more pronounced than the
first. “Mr. McIntosh, are you in
there? Mr. McIntosh, your taxi is
here. I’m sorry for being late,
but I had a hard time finding your house.
I’ll be waiting for you in the car, out front by the curb.”
In my dream I allowed myself to finally exhale, like a
pent-up hurricane breaking free of its inhibitions.
Like a big welcome sigh of relief.
