Well, this came to me yesterday. I was going to write it up as a poem, but obviously I reconsidered and thought it would best be told via the short story medium. Anyhow, this is one of those rare occasions, when I post something other than poetry on this blog. Hope all enjoy.
I
had the most vivid of dreams last night.
I awoke fully believing I had just won the lottery. In the dream there was then the waking dream,
the kind that you transform into a zone unbreakable, where all the fantasies of
change come fully to life. The feeling
was beyond comprehension, except for those who’ve perhaps been blessed by a
similar fate.
I
paced my room looking for the ticket, tossing papers from drawers, checking
books to see if I had used it as a placeholder, outturned pockets in the laundry
bin, praying those numbers I would then find.
Then, in the mirror, I noticed the ticket was somehow stuck to my
forehead. A smile so wide filled my
cheeks as I pulled it from my brow. I
held it up, lauding all it represented, seemingly for hours, as time simply
stayed motionless before me there.
I
grabbed my keys, hopped in the car, pajamas still on, hair still tousled. The streets were perfectly empty as I took
the short journey to the downtown lottery office, heart racing the entire time. When I arrived at the building the doors were
locked. Nobody could be seen
anywhere. It had all the qualities of a ghost
town, a place void of life. It was then, when I reached for my phone, that I
realized that it was Sunday. I couldn’t
go home, not yet, not back to bed, not now.
It
was then that I happened to notice a church offering service, to which I gladly
entered, completely ignorant of what my appearance could or would project. The pastor read his readings and filled the
tiny room with the greatest passion I’d ever seen. There were but a dozen people in there. I was the only one not in a suit-coat or a
Sunday-dress, but nobody cast a judgmental eye upon me, not a single one. But, really, how could they, when this
preacher was beyond anything anyone, well okay, more than I, had ever seen
before. I was once again filled with the
same joy I had experienced just a few hours earlier, yet none of the
franticness filled me, not even in the slightest degree. The man in God’s cloak came to each of us there,
shook each by the hand, placing an arm, tenderly upon a shoulder. He looked us in the eyes, and said some
words, words so moving, so beautiful that I could not remember any of them at
all, not a single one.
As
the service was concluding, another man came down from behind the, up until
then, sealed doors behind the pulpit, carrying a long wire-mesh basket, asking,
without speaking, for anything we could give, to help. At such a moment, seconds before this man
looked me in the eye, speaking nothing, just looking at me, I realized I didn’t
have my wallet, I didn’t have anything on me except my keys. He looked at me, not in disgust, but instead
with compassionate eyes of understanding.
As he walked away, I realized something and called back to him. While making the short trip back to me, I met
him half the way. I looked him in the
eye, and without a moment of hesitancy, not a single one, I placed a solitary
piece of paper in that meshed basket, to which he replied, “bless you sir.”
I
then awoke, for real. I sat there in my
darkened room. It certainly was
Sunday. I calmly went to my wallet and
pulled out the lottery ticket from within from where I always kept them. I sat at the computer and went to the state’s
website. I checked the numbers, realizing
I didn’t have a single one of them. I
sighed, but not as long as I would have expected.
I
hopped in the shower. I put on a fresh
pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I pulled
back the curtains and opened the blinds.
Light rushed in and the dogs jumped quickly atop the bed, as they always
do. I let them both kiss me on the nose
and told them I’d be back soon. I got in
my car and reversed out of my driveway.
I had to stop right at the end, as many cars happened to be travelling
past my house. It was then I saw a large
man and a thin man walking a small golden retriever. As they approached me, I realized these were
the men from my dream. I noticed the
dog’s collar said Jesus. As they got
closer I waved to them, and the thinner man simply said, “and bless you sir.”
