Protecting the Perimeter
Another dream that ends with a sugar low. We are sitting around in the living room of my son’s home. It is the home he has in this dream, and is a ramshackle farmhouse somewhere out in the hinterland.
I hear noises outside and see, through the living room window, shadowy figures moving about in the yard. There are at least a dozen of them and they are entering and exiting derelict automobiles that are scattered about the property. All these people seem to be young adults, dressed in sort of ersatz ninja outfits. They aren’t hooded or masked, but definitely trying for the invisible thing. Two of them seem to have been near the living room window and are heading away stealthily. Oddly, they are hand in hand and have a kind of conspiratorial spring in their step. I am furious and, shouting my family to stay put, I grab a broom, or sometimes as I glance down at it, a scythe.
Pat Hingle is slumped on one side of a two-seater Adirondack bench. He’s dressed in a sleeveless undershirt and bib overalls. He has a battered fedora perched on the back of his head. And he is rolling a joint. I am really annoyed and run over to him and demand to know what he thinks he is doing. He slowly stands up, but says nothing. He is much taller than I expected. I tell him to get the hell off my property (as I am shouting this I am aware that I don’t own the property, but decide not to split hairs).
He nods toward the rusting shell of a 40s era pick up truck, drawing my attention to a couple necking, crammed unbelievably tightly against one side of the cab and glistening with sweat.
Hingle turns on a radio. There is a lot of static, because of the nearby cornfield and the roaring and chugging of excavators and front-end loaders, but I can hear the CBC.
I am flailing my arms and shouting that I will call the police. Hingle ambles toward me in a casual, menacing fashion. I am backing up, adjusting my grip on what is now a shovel. He passes me, but I feel it is more of a circling maneuver. I wake up sweating and panicked.