A broken hammer and a laughing fit

 

I was dreaming that a spiritual guru who looked like a biker—bald, burly, tattooed and rough around the edges—was giving out hammers that were alleged to be talismans. He had five of them, all different, and he picked out several people on the street upon whom to bestow specific hammers. He handed me a claw hammer with a blue rubber grip and two broken claws on the business end.

 

"Here," he said. "Take this one. You'll need it."

 

I told him that I had one just like it already, except mine wasn’t broken on the claw end. 

 

"Can I keep it anyway?" I asked, not wanting to pass on something free.

 

He told me to keep it, and if it didn’t serve me, I could give it back. I kept it and walked on. Then I woke up.

Before that, I was in a rec room somewhere, with my friend Emery. I was laughing at a kid outside the window who was doing something funny. I can’t remember what it was, but Emery found it amusing because I was laughing so hard that I had to lie down next to her, wiping the tears from my face with her garment as I did so.

After the hammer-guru-biker segment, I was awakened by a text from Emery. 

 

"I'm annoying you now. I'm annoying you now. I'm annoying you now," came the familiar ringtone. 

 

"I couldn't sleep last night," she said. "I kept having nightmare after nightmare." 

I told her about my dreams, omitting the detail about wiping my tears on her skirt. It somehow seemed inappropriately weird, and although I make no apologies for anything that happens in my dreams—my dream, my universe—still, I didn't want to creep her out first thing in the morning, or at all, really. 

 

Anyway, there you have it, another faithfully reported dream fragment, frivolous as it may be, and insignificant in the scheme of things.