Disturbing Dream

I woke up today with much clearer vision from one of the murkiest dreams of my career. Years ago, I dreamed I was a Smurf; over winter break I imagined myself in Hell with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generations; last night, I was held prisoner by a Nazi supersoldier.

After she and her colleagues first deluded a friend of mine (a writer) into believing he would be freed, then shot him dead, she took a few of us survivors to an expensive restaurant overlooking the ocean. I don't know why. But each time she looked away, I scribbled notes on the back of a DemiDec business card--"We are being held prisoner by Nazis. Get help"--and tried slipping it to other diners.

Two things went wrong with this plan. First, I had drafted several business cards but my hands had been too jittery to finish writing them, so I dropped them on the ground. Our captor found them there with her foot and cackled merrily as she shared them with the table. Simultaneously, the man to whom I had given the final version of the card read it out loud in disbelief, loudly enough for everyone in the restaurant to hear. I realized with a collapsing heart that while he and his companions were in fact American, they were also very drunk.

The Nazi woman holding us laughed at me.

But there was only one of her. And if I hesitated any longer, it might be too late. So I began pummeling her head with my fists. No one else in the restaurant reacted.

She laughed harder. "I have a super-enhanced skull," she said, "You can't do a thing to hurt me."

I ignored a flare of dismay in my chest--and stuck my fingers through her eyes.


* * *

That's when I woke up, pulled off my goggles, shook my head a few times to clear away the nightmare, and had eggs and muffins for breakfast.