oneironaut in medias res

When I finished putting salad into my belly for lunch yesterday, I went to the doors at the back of the hospital cafeteria and walked outside. I’d been wondering what was out there. It didn’t go to where I thought it would go, that area outside with a gazebo made of new wood. It went to a tiny area with a few benches, where people smoke after lunch. There weren’t many people out, so I sat on a bench under the sun and read my book.

Kneading through boxes and shelves of books at a rummage sale a couple of weekends ago, The Magus by John Fowles, whom I’d never read, caught my eye. I tried not to look, but I am weak in the seduction of books. Right now over 500 books, which the fellas recently helped me move into the house, are stuck midway between box and shelf. Many of these books I haven’t read. I pick them up at used stores, new stores, rummage sales, Goodwill. When it’s nearly free, and when it’s something I’d like to feed my soul with, I pick it up, perhaps under the guise of some ideal early retirement during which I’ll lie about reading and writing voraciously. In the past year or so—more?—words haven’t excited me like they used to. This has disturbed me. I equate a good read, as well as a good write, with a good orgasm. Core vigors, manna.

This book, this magic book, has woven itself into my synapses and nerve endings, my heart and fingertips. As they say, I can’t put it down. At long last, I again think about the characters and the world they live in when I’m away from the book. I underline, make notes, dog-ear, stop to think. Suddenly, again, synchronicity shows its dazzling face, the book's livelihood oscillatingly concurrent in theme with lines in my non-book life, lines in the web which glow at each new intersection.

When lunch time was over, I had to go back in through a side door. The door I’d come out was locked. This took me down a hallway. Just as I was about to pass the Security sign, a guard stepped out from around the corner, singing a single phrase, "Your dreams will come true." I didn't recognize the tune. He passed and I walked on.

Three hours later when I left from work, a truck drove toward me. Across the front of it was a large pastel-colored sticker: "Make your dreams come true." My first thought was, What kind of cheesy mother would put this on the front of this burly truck? The truck looked masculine, but by the sticker I assumed a female driver. I looked up and through the windshield. The driver was a man, dark wordless eyes, and he was staring me in the face.

It startled me. Then I remembered the security guard’s song, and the luna and my psyche’s buried map.