Defying Destiny
In this dream I am (or at least identify with) a senior citizen named James O’Malley (lately my dreams are populated by the Irish …a modern history of Ireland is on my bedside table). James is arguing with destiny in a sidewalk café (actually, because it doesn’t matter in a dream, this out door café has a Tiffany lamp hanging from a non-existent ceiling).
Destiny is a soft, pasty, self-righteous and self-satisfied, red haired 18th century bureaucrat named Pudding. He has no first name (or it doesn’t count because he says his first name second – as in “the name’s Pudding, Hasty Pudding, you will find me in the directory under Pudding, Hasty). That is certainly the way he addresses me/James O’Malley.
“Wouldn’t it have been prudent, O’Malley, James, to have had some foresight before this?”
I (James O’Malley) am getting agitated. “What, what are you talking about? All foresight is before.” I want to mock the fact he’d been redundant, but the only word I can conjure is “indolent”.
Pudding smirks.
I make a note to consult a thesaurus when I awake.
A bald referee (I can tell by his clothing he is on Pudding’s team) is holding up a Red Card that clearly means the game is over for the hapless O’Malley. Pudding is well pleased to be officially terminating O’Malley’s corporal career. The thought (I assume it to be a fallacy) that one can’t die in one’s own dream occurs to me and leads me to conclude that I am not O’Malley – or O’Malley, notwithstanding the plot of the dream, will somehow escape his destiny.
There are others in the café, although I can’t actually see them. They are all engaged in their own arguments and oblivious to the life and death debate unfolding at the O’Malley table. Really, it’s not much of a debate. O’Malley is desperately making his case, but Pudding is smugly unmoved.
At one point in this dream I am distracted by a café patron who is loudly slurping his soup. He comes into view at the next table I have to rewind a few seconds to pick up the O’Malley/Pudding debate where I lost it. They are very annoyed with me. I remind O’Malley of what is in store for him when the discussion ends. He ignores me – I am the bearer of bad news. I think as an aside in the dream, that he’s pissed with the wrong actor. Pudding’s his party pooper.
Now I am awake and have no idea where the dream would have gone.