PUZZLE

What a dream! What a dream! It was real. I saw it all, felt every emotion, smelled the flowers, didn’t want to wake up...but I did. The digital clock on the bureau blinked 10:02. I knew that was p.m. because I had only a few minutes ago gotten into bed. T.V. was on. Blood poured from bodies, not my kind of entertainment. Reaching for the remote, it slipped and fell on the floor and I followed it.

Unbelievably, the dream still existed, had not evaporated in gremlin dust. The colors, the trees, the houses, people living, loving, were drawing pictures in my mind. I could still smell the farmer’s perspiration, feel his strong, knotted hands. Was I still dreaming?

No. I had switched on the ceiling light and was opening the right hand drawer to my desk. I was awake alright. A lined notebook that I had bought on a whim yesterday smiled at me and whispered ‘Pick me up. Pick me up! Sit down and write your dream. The desk lamp lit itself or, did my notebook carelessly push against it? For sure, I hadn’t turned it on. Roads and roads of blue colored lines blurred my vision. They changed to black when I turned off the ceiling light and began to concentrate on that dream. My Waterman’s pen jumped into my hand and words flew non-stop onto the paper. The sensation of no control frightened me.

I turned off the desk lamp and was shocked to see morning ahead of me. A breeze had come in the half opened window, touched my face and closed my notebook. Exhaustion overcame me so that I climbed back into bed, knowing that I had no idea what I had written or had I dreamed I wrote all nite?

It was 11 a.m. when I woke again. Rain had come in when the breeze left. The floor needed wiping up but I was not in the mood to do it. I needed coffee and a bowl of Rice Krispies using up the last banana that was about to rot. Reality had to show its face. Instead, a warm shower and fresh clothes sent me back to my desk and Dreamville. My closed writing book was lying open. At least 20 pages both sides had unfamiliar words scribbled on them. Slowly the dream appeared. The story was not finished. I worked on it for hours, improving it, fixing punctuation, making all tense past. Up to that point, I knew my writing was very professional, interesting. It was ready to go into a computer document under Word Perfect. I typed and typed as if I were possessed by an angel, praising me, pushing me on. But I still needed a title and a closing. I froze. I could not think straight any longer. The angel said, ‘Pace yourself. It will come. You’ve come so far. Keep going.’ Nothing came to me.

A little click, a little green click, that I recognized to be the sound my printer makes when I turn it on, made me look around. My room was empty except for me. My fingers were still poised on the keyboard. The printer began to hum even though I had never turned it on, saved what I had already written, hadn’t entered a title. Everything was as it should be, font, color, size perfect. All of my corrections were correct. The last paragraph, the big finish for my story, had not yet come to me, yet there it was printed. How? Who? What caused this phenomena? I have never found out.All I know is the title in Bold Black print started my story that has now been published in the LA Times.

You can go to back log and find ‘EXPLANATION WANTED’ on page 38 ‘story time’ June 18, 2008.