I awoke this morning with a start, sweating, and unsure of my location. I scanned the room. Wood paneling. Lamp shaped like an owl. It was of no use.I'd had the dream that haunted me throughout my early teens: I was piloting an air-boat (the type Cajuns use to traverse their swamp habitat) over a lake of burning corpses. I knew it was important I reach my destination—someone was waiting for me and they desperately needed my help. But the place and the person were just beyond the reach of my mind, due to the dream-fog that is familiar to any avid sleeper or user of DMT.
My years of banging Anna Freud should have taught me to heed the message my sub-conscious was sending me, but either because of hubris or the warmth I feel for the Cajun people, I shrugged it off as meaningless. I was also hungry and I remembered where I was: Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, in lodging reminiscent of T.R.’s hunter/trapper themed bungalow on 57th and Lex. I had my usual breakfast of 6 poached eggs sent up from the kitchen.
I was on my fourth egg, when the horn of my traveling companion’s auto blared. I was to have been packed and ready by the time he arrived.
We had spent the previous night at the local "Hunter's Lodge Bar," a wonderfully rustic place in which the eponymous woodsmen put the events of the day behind them and display their keen sense of sportsmanship by allowing several elk to roam the bar without any worry of bother from rifles or hard looks. After gorging on whiskey and flannel, Thomas and I parted ways, he to the home of a distant relation, and I to the room at an establishment by the highway.
The horn blared again. I packed my belongings and my remaining eggs and made haste. Though, before settling the bill, I trashed the room, as I believe is customary in these "Mo-tels" (the quaint contraction of motor hotel). This also gave me the opportunity to work out an "anger experiment" I had been considering for some time (notes to follow).