Three Dreams, in short order

First, I dreamed that Denise was here in bed next to me, getting ready for sleep. She was uncharacteristically mad at me. I don't remember what for, just that it was a side of her that I'd never seen. She's so calm and unrelentingly peaceful, mostly. It's like she took some notes from Sharon's and my playbook, and it was her turn to run the anger ball down the field.

"I can't take this anymore...You...This...All of it..." She scowled the words out, leaving me with lying there with my shocked sense of hurt, as she threw the covers off and gathered up her things to go.

Instead of her leaving, however, it was I who took leave of the situation. I decided to go for a meditative walk to get some perspective. 

I walked down the road, a narrow, dark, house lined walkway, with a gate at the end of it. Beyond the gate was dimly lit staircase, descending into blackness. 

I felt fear. It was intangible, a vague conceptional fear. I wasn't going to be dissuaded by a concept, so I closed my eyes and proceeded.  

The ambiguous fear began to materialize in the form of a hoodied figure, a mugger perhaps, ascending the long staircase toward the gate. Bravado be damned, I turned and walked hastily toward home, looking back occasionally over my shoulder to see if I was being pursued.

----

I was in a hospital hospice wing, just visiting, as the corner square in Monopoly firmly asserts. But someone I knew was in this hospital, and that someone was my dad. I didn't want to be there, and at first I walked past his room. He was sitting upright in bed, in full control of his faculties, and in possession of all his disdainful superiority. 

Christ, can't this guy at least die humbly, I thought.

I walked down the hallway and found that I'd been mistaken. This person, Paul Golding, this white bearded man of intellectual certitude, man of screenplays, of self-aggrandizing condescension, was not my father, but his twin brother. 

I did a double take, and walked down the hall. I walked on down the hall, like Jim Morrison in This is the End, and I saw another man. A helpless, puffy version of the man I knew to be my father.

"You never told me you had a brother," I started, accusingly.

No glasses to focus his critical stare, this was a rosy cheeked Santa Claus of a man, completely supine, breathless and weak, meek as a sheep and barely able to speak. This was his deathbed, and I was there to witness this redemptive moment. 

He smiled at me as if to say, "I've fucked up, son, but it's all going to be OK."

----

Meanwhile, back in Las Vegas, I was on a road trip with some friends of mine from Bible Study. Martin, Johanna and a few others, I don't recall exactly. We were at a restaurant, and things were taking too long for my liking.

"I'm out of here," I said, standing up from the booth in dramatic fashion. Always the drama with me.

I began walking home, but I soon realized that home was several hundred miles and a mountain range or two away. This stubbornness of mine was going to cost me a couple of pairs of shoes at least, not to mention the wear and tear on my feeble knee joints.

As I made my way down a side street, strip adjacent but hidden from the towering luminescent glow of Sin City proper, I encountered two females. They were attractive mixed race siblings of undetermined origin. Black, white, French, American--hybrid model types--mocha skinned, with hair that fell past the shoulders in a cascade of perfect ringlets. They were dressed in summer clothes of a whimsically skimpy nature, the kind worn by prostitutes who cater to a certain type of clientele with mildly pedophilic leanings. 

I eyed them with suspicion as one approached me. I looked into her eyes, and my suspicion melted into bliss. They were a brilliant hypnotic blue-green, and staring into them, I  appeared to be gazing into a more vibrant version of my own dull, world-weary hazel eyes. I saw limitless potential, mischief, undying love and everything that makes a man fall head over heels. She was trouble, and I was already in deep.

"Hello, kind sir," she said, weaving a web she'd undoubtedly woven for many unsuspecting tourists in the past.

"I don't have any money," I blurted out, although I did have my wallet with all my credit cards in my pocket.

"We don't care about that," she said. "Come sit down with us." She then invited me to sit on a padded leather loveseat that functioned as a park bench. You gotta love Vegas.

I sat down, and the second girl sat in between me and her sister. She playfully began to kiss me, flicking her tongue about like a snake and tickling my lips and teeth. I found this amusing, and reciprocated a bit, but it was not her that I was drawn to, but her sister, who reminded me not a little bit of Lesa.

I extricated myself from this frivolous activity and began to address the first girl, who was now going through the contents of my wallet. I think she'd expected me to carry on a bit more with her sister, but she was unfazed by my sudden shift of attention. She put all the contents back in my wallet and handed it to me. 

It didn't matter, I thought, she'd had more than enough time to copy all my credit card numbers and had probably run up quite a tab already with the old click and buy on Amazon. I guessed I'd have to get all that sorted when I got home.

----

Each of these dreams ended somewhat prematurely, as I had to wake up and dry my sweat drenched thermals in front of the small infra-red space heater in the bathroom. God, I hate winter.