A Birthday Dream

Among the many books and studies my friend  Silo has written, there is a collection of fiction  entitled, Day of the Winged Lion. As surprising  and wonderfully strange as I found these stories, I  found it even stranger that the tale that gives the  book its title is dedicated to me.  

I thought I knew the reason for this friendly  gesture; I had after all supplied the author with  some of the imagery in his story. That’s what  caught my attention anyway. I didn’t really  consider the fact that his story involved a collective  (precognitive) dream.  

Then, some years later, the following events  unfolded. Even then a long time would pass before  I realized that the situation was now much more  complicated. Had this fiction been dedicated to me  because of the story I’d shared with him or had it  been dedicated to me because sometime, in some  possible future, I would find myself dreaming or  being dreamed in just such a way?  

There are moments when improbabilities  compound improbabilities in the most  extraordinary way. Sometimes, it is simply too  much; then, events can neither be dismissed nor  accepted. They remain an indigestible lump of  experience, until lost in the memory with other  forgotten dreams. I’ve watched people’s eyes glaze  over—even those who love to swap tales of the  weird—as they listen to this account of the ‘simply  unlikely’ spiraling out of control.  

When you finish this little tale, you might be as  perplexed as I am about what to consider stranger;  the events that I am about to describe or the  fact that a story written years earlier involved  something so unlikely as associating me with that  most improbable event, a collective precognitive  dream. 

Before continuing, I have to apologize again for the  stylistic pretensions of these anecdotes. In this case  in particular, the strangeness of the events set me  searching for a fitting way to tell the tale. I hope  my literary shortcomings don’t stand in the way of  your enjoying this story, nor confuse the fact that  this was a real event. 

I’m going to tell you a story and I won’t be surprised  or disappointed if, when I finish telling it, you don’t  believe me, even when I promise you that it’s all true.  This story is so unlikely that it is hard for me to begin  to understand what consequences follow from it.  Hell, it’s even difficult for me to remember it, let alone  believe it. But this time I have lots of witnesses. So, if  you don’t believe me, ask Roberto or even Donna— and that really means something since Donna hates  this kind of shit. 

Everything was moving in slow motion. My thinking  was confused or maybe it just seemed that way  because everything was so slowed down. I had been  driving my car but now I was stuck, another car  blocked my way. It was cold and dark. Everything was  freezing. Everything was moving so slowly.  

It was early enough that even had it been summer  it would have been dark, but this was Candlemas,  Groundhog Day, my Birthday. I lay in bed, outside was the cold and ice, the snow and the dark. I  lay there trying not to wake Donna who was still  sleeping beside me.  

My thoughts dark, congealing… frozen, like  everything else around me, what was once fluid now  almost solid. ‘I have to move that car. It’s blocking my  way’. 

Donna turned toward me. “Happy Birthday,” she  whispered even before she opened her eyes.  Whispering, I began to tell her of my strange  birthday dream. Even as I began speaking, I  couldn’t figure out exactly why it seemed any  stranger, any different from many other dreams on  many other winter mornings.

“I’ll push it out of my way, I’ll just drive forward  slowly, and I’ll push that other car to the side of the  street. I have to do it slowly” 

Be careful... 

I don’t want to smash that other car. Should I be  doing this? Won’t I scratch the other car?

What about my car? Why am I doing this? Be careful...  

I have to pay attention. Something is wrong. Go slowly. Be alert. “Something is wrong...  It’s cold and dark and dangerous.” 

Donna’s response was not what I expected. She  interrupted me as my pointless tale of a slow motion, somehow deliberate, auto accident  meandered off into the obscure, cold, dark  morning. “It’s very weird,” she mumbled, still  drifting up from sleep, “That’s sort of like my  dream. I’m not sure what happened, but it was  about cars. I think I was driving down the highway  when somehow all the wheels of my car turned  90 degrees and I drove down the street sideways,  but it was like nothing was strange about it, it all  seemed perfectly normal.”  

It was my turn to cut her off . It was a weekday,  and we would have to get things going if we were  going to get the kids off to school on time. By the  time I got out of the shower, she was hunkered  over a cup of coffee. “You better get the car  warmed up,” she said. “It looks pretty crappy out  there.”

It wasn’t easy to scrape the ice off the windshield,  but it was even harder to get into my car. It was  one of those mornings when even the lock was  frozen, but I finally got the door open. The cold  of the car seat cut through both my coat and my  pants. I put the key in the ignition and nothing…  The car was totally, absolutely, irreparably dead.

The clock was ticking; I had to get to work, and the  kids had to get to school. This called for a quick  solution. Luckily, it lay close at hand. I’d take the  kids in Donna’s car, and it was in the driveway right  in front of mine. I started scraping the ice off her  windows, as I thought, “Not that lucky.” My car was  blocking the driveway and how the hell was I going  to get it out of the way? I sat in her car while the  engine was warming, trying to figure out what to  do. Then, I realized that the bumpers of the two cars  were almost kissing. “If I’m careful…” Even to my  sleep-addled brain it seemed an obvious solution…  “I can just push my car onto the road.” I started to  move forward… carefully. I started to lift my foot  from the brake. Carefully… I got ready to let the car  roll gently back. “I have to be careful not to scratch  the cars.” Even before these thoughts were fully  formed something welled up from my memory. 

My thoughts dark, congealing… frozen, like  everything else around me, what was once fluid now  almost solid.  

“I have to move that car. It’s blocking my way.” 

Everything was moving in slow motion. My thinking  was confused or maybe it just seemed that way  because everything was so slowed down. I had been  driving my car but now I was stuck, another car  blocked my way. It was cold and dark. Everything was  freezing. Everything was moving so slowly.  

I was laughing aloud as I pushed my car onto the  side of the road, and it wasn’t because I’d just  had this amazing precognitive dream. The best  part—and it was unbelievably lucky—was that I  had told Donna about my dream. It was just the  kind of thing that she would laugh off as silliness  or stupidity—a dream about the future that came  true. But I had told her about my dream before it  happened. And it was then that I remembered that  she had also had a dream about a car.  

I dropped off the kids and headed down to work  but I kept thinking about Donna’s smile as she  laughed at the idea that there was anything more  than coincidence to this… coincidence. “Things  happen,” she said, “and of all the things that could  happen on a winter morning, this isn’t the most  unlikely.”  

Roberto and I were having a coffee at the little café  in the Atrium of the Broadcast Centre. I began to  regale him with this strange tale.  

“I’ll push it out of my way, I’ll just drive forward  slowly, and I’ll push that other car to the side of the  street. I have to do it slowly. 

Be careful... 

I don’t want to smash that other car. Should I be  doing this? Won’t I scratch the other car? What about  my car? Why am I doing this?  

Be careful...  

I have to pay attention. Something is wrong. Go  slowly. Be alert. Something is wrong...  

It’s cold and dark and dangerous.” 

By this point perhaps, I shouldn’t have been  surprised when Roberto suddenly broke into  my—I’d thought spellbinding—narrative. He  interrupted me as my pointless tale of a slow motion, somehow deliberate auto accident  meandered off into the brightly lit atrium.  

“How strange,” he said, gently sloshing the  remaining coffee around in its Styrofoam cup.  “That’s sort of like my dream. I don’t remember all  of it, but it was also about cars. Well, it started off  being about my house and then I was driving my  car down the highway and finally as naturally as  anything it became an airplane and flew off .” 

What could have been stranger, three of us  dreaming a dream about cars; perhaps it wasn’t my  birthday dream after all? Perhaps it was something  else. 

For my money, I’d say all of that could stand as a  good story by itself. Why not? It’s got an intriguing  beginning, a less than likely middle and just that  kind of quirky ending that I like. But it’s not a story.  Not a made-up one anyway and that’s not where it  ended. Not by a long shot.

By the time I got to my office there was a message  from Donna. “I had a tow-truck pick up the car and  take it to Zoltak’s. If you come and get me after  work, I’ll drive you up there and we can get it.” And  that of course is what we did. 

Zoltak was the name written in red letters on the  sign at my mechanic’s. It was actually his father in-law’s last name; his name was Saul. Donna and  the kids waited in her car. I went in to talk to Saul.  If my car was ready, Donna would head home.  Otherwise, I’d get a ride back home with her and  we’d try again later.  

To understand the full import of what follows you  have to understand my relationship with this guy.  We certainly weren’t close, even less were we really  friends. Not that we didn’t like each other but our  relationship was based on business. I saw him as  little as possible because when I did it meant my  car was broken and it was going to cost me money.  But he seemed to be a good guy. I didn’t know him  very well but my brother, my father and I had all  taken our cars there for many years. I trusted him  well enough to take his advice about my car and  I thought him honest enough to feel he wouldn’t  overcharge me.

That the car was ready was no surprise, it wasn’t  even much of a surprise that Saul was only going  to charge me for the tow and not for the repair.

“Only a loose wire, don’t worry about it,” he said. It  was what followed that floored me.  

“You’ve got to be very careful when you leave  here. I had a dream about you last night. You were  driving your car out of here and you got hit by a  truck. So be careful.”  

“What about my car? Why am I doing this? Be careful.  I have to pay attention. Something is wrong.”  

I was stunned, not only because of what the  dream was about but because this almost-stranger  had dreamt of me. Saul looked up at my puzzled  expression. “Don’t worry,” he said earnestly, “I know  about these things. I study kabbalah.” 

Go slowly. Be alert. Something is wrong. It’s cold and  dark and dangerous. 

Still reeling from my mystical mechanic’s warning,  I turned to wave to Donna, signalling her to leave. I  kept thinking of how she would react when we got home, and I told her the latest instalment in this  dream saga. I expected she would dismiss it, not  unreasonably, as another coincidence: “So he had a  dream about cars. He is a mechanic.”

“What about my car? Why am I doing this? Be careful.  I have to pay attention. Something is wrong. Go  slowly. Be alert. Something is wrong. It’s cold and  dark and dangerous.” 

When I met up with Donna at home, the kids  were just piling out of the car. The youngest one  came dancing up to me, words pouring out of her,  almost exploding with excitement, “We almost got  killed, a big truck almost smashed into us when we  left that place.” 

I had been driving my car but now I was stuck.  It was cold and dark. Everything was freezing.  Everything was moving so slowly. My thoughts dark,  congealing…frozen, like everything else around me,  what was once fluid now almost solid. 

She danced around her brother, chanting as they  raced up to the house. “We almost got killed, we  almost got killed, we almost got killed…” 

It was February. That meant that the evening came  early but, even though the sky was turning red  through the grey clouds, for a moment it seemed  that the sunlight was too bright.