Midnight Snack


I'm not a doctor and I'm not a detective.  I have no reason for having
my telephone beside my bed, and so I don't keep it there.  I keep my
telephone in my kitchen.  It's much handier there since that is where
the phonebooks are kept.  The phonebooks are beside the potatoes, but
I admit there's no good reason for that.

In any case, all this means I had to get out of bed and walk all the
way to the kitchen on the night I got a telephone call from my friend.
I know that to begin a story with a phone call is a very dull thing,
but whatever happened before and afterward would surprise you by being
even duller.

No, this is no action story.  Nor does it dwell too long on some
emotion, I hope.  I didn't drop the phone in horror after three
seconds with it to my ear.  Nor, after I'd hung up, did I rush around
to pack a small suitcase.  When our little conversation came to an end
and it was time for her and me to say goodbye, each to each, I went
back to my bed, rearranged the sheets, and fell asleep nearly at once.

I didn't even have to turn any lights off.  I know my way in the dark
to and from the phone so well not because I am forever answering
midnight calls (as I say, I have no reason to keep the telephone
beside my bed) but because I make a habit of using the electric light
only to read by.  There really is nothing else I might do at night
that deserves this commodity.  I can even make myself a sandwich in
the newest of moons.

Yes, I like the dark.  My nights largely consist of either the reading
or sandwich-making mentioned above, or else I take a quilt out onto my
deck and spread out under the stars I'm allowed.  If I am not allowed
many stars I'll often go for a walk in the dark until I get some more.
Sometimes I can never get enough, and suddenly our warm star vaults up
over the horizon and I find myself hitch-hiking my way home with a
working man just filled up with beans and eggs and toast.  Sometimes I
fall asleep out there on my deck and wake up covered in dew and
shivering.

On the night in question, though, I was in bed.  I'd done a little
reading.  I'd done a little thinking.  Then I decided that it was time
for a little sleeping to top it all off.

Then the phone rang.

As I say, after the phone call I returned to my bed and was right back
into the dreaming I sometimes do.  Then it was morning and the dreams
had tired of me.  My dreams try to pull me away, you see.  They wait
for me to get just tired enough, then they start tugging gently at the
sleeves of my bedclothes.  I just try to let them be.

Some nights my dreams catch me and hold me up through the night and
it's as if I'm sleeping in a hammock, so safe.  Other nights they're
more assertive.  They each want to take me in a different direction
and it's like I'm stretched out on the block.  Most of the time
though, they are gentle.  Most of the time I don't mind them.  Some
days I even find myself hanging out for the first chance to have them
carry me away.

But in the mornings, whether they have been insistent or accomodating,
my dreams depart.  They're too tired from holding me up all night, too
tired from straining to carry me off with them, and they give up and
leave me to the sun.  It's okay.  I get up and stretch and think.  I
eat some breakfast and I go for a little walk.  I go to work and I
return home.

The dream I had after the phone call was a little different.  I was
walking down the corridor with a large paper cup in my hands and the
corridor was white with clean walls and the paper cup was full of dull
grey razor blades.  I kept walking and another man similar to myself
was coming towards me and he said, “What's in the cup?” and I looked
down into the paper cup and fished out a razor blade and I said,
“Razor blades.  One brand new razor blade for every man in the place.
Tell your friends to get in line.  They're sharp as glass.”

And this different kind of dream was a tugger.  It zipped off up into
the sky and I unraveled like a yo-yo left spinning behind.  It tugged
so hard and left me reeling so bad I rolled right out of bed when the
yo-yo got to the bottom of its string and I snapped off into daylight.

There I sat a little confused in a pile of sheets fallen off my bed.
There was my daylight, leaking through where the curtains don't hang
quite right.  It was a moment for me to think about things.  It was a
moment to reflect on the feeling I was left with and then to decide
whether I ought to recall the details of my dream or not.

Though I try to let them be, my playful dreams sometimes bother me
into remembering them.  When it's as complex a feeling as this it is a
hard decision to make.  Nice feelings herald no need for inspection,
troubled dreams must be looked into; but this was like a striptease.

She moves her arms around her body, she caresses, she writhes.  And in
the background someone disapproves.  In the spattered foreground
there's the satisfaction so disatisfied.  Once you pay your ticket at
the door you're stuck with that stamp for the rest of the night.  I
seem to make a different choice every time.

This matter bore no need for prying.  I rode the confusion for the
rest of the morning.