The assassin: a dream

A woman sits in a throne room, on cushions to one side of the throne with the rest of the king’s harem. Like the others, she is wearing beautiful clothing made of costly and exquisite fabrics. Unlike the others, she has concealed on her person a small but deadly weapon. She is a trained assassin, placed in the harem as part of a plot to kill the king. She is the failsafe, the guarantee that the plot will succeed.

She is in place on this day, as on so many days before, wholly unsuspected. A delegation of merchants from a certain city is announced, and she knows that today is the day. The members of the delegation are also assassins; she is to kill the king if their plan does not succeed.

She was raised to think the king a cruel tyrant, but her time in the harem has shown her that he is a just ruler and a wise man. Although her entire life has been dedicated to the fulfillment of this mission, she finds herself questioning the righteousness of her cause. A squabble breaks out among the merchants as they approach the throne. All eyes are drawn to the growing commotion; the moment is at hand. She leaps for the throne, weapon in hand.

“It’s a plot to kill the king!” she cries, assuming a defensive stance between the king and the would-be assassins. Once the guards have neutralized the threat, she turns, drops to one knee, and lays her weapon at the king’s feet. “I know because I was part of it,” she adds with bowed head. She did not expect to survive this day in any case. It is enough to know she has acted with integrity.

Instead of ordering her to be executed, the king asks her to be his personal bodyguard. Amazed and overjoyed, she agrees. She realizes that she has truly found her life’s purpose.

The diver: a dream fragment

A woman stands, poised to run, several strong cords secured about her waist. They trail behind her, each terminating in a stout bar that serves as a handhold for those who will accompany her. In a few moments she will run full tilt toward a large screen and dive headlong into it. In doing so she will plunge into Hell, pulling with her anyone brave or foolish enough to take up the tow ropes. This is not her first foray into Hell; she goes again and again to battle demons. She doesn’t know why the others go with her, only that this peculiar ability is her lot, her gift and burden.

The head case

A woman had problems thinking and making decisions, so she went to see her doctor. After running a series of tests, the doctor informed her that her head was filled with rocks.

“Is that a serious condition?” she asked with concern.

“It’s not life-threatening, if that’s what you mean,” the doctor replied. “But it can make it difficult to function, as you’ve found.”

“What can be done about it?” the woman asked.

“The only treatment is to open your skull and remove the rocks,” the doctor said. The woman consented to the treatment and the doctor scheduled her for surgery.

She was groggy for a bit after she woke up from the anesthesia, but her head was finally empty and she was able to think clearly for the rest of her life.

Too much

“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” — Mae West

As I wandered the aisles of a large chain bookstore the other day, I experienced a growing sense of unease. I paused between the Philosophy and the New Age Spirituality sections and sought to put my finger on the cause. A few minutes later I murmured, “There are too many books in the world.” Even as one part of my mind reeled in astonishment, I looked about me, nodded my head, and repeated, “There are too many books in the world.”

Coming from a hopeless bibliophile and former aspiring writer, this is nothing less than shocking. Stranger still, my profound love of both reading and writing has led me to this uncomfortable conviction. There are not enough days left to me in this life, nor hours in those days, to read all the books currently in print that I want to read. Likewise, such a surfeit (dare I say glut?) of books makes it extremely unlikely that anything written by me will ever find it’s way into print, let alone to a retailer’s shelf. These twin realizations sank in like fangs, the venom of their import so debilitating that I had to leave the bookstore at once. I may not be able to go back.

I have long been a great fan of Mae West, and the quote at the top of this posting is one I have claimed at times as a personal motto. Now I find myself sadly and reluctantly amending it to fit my present state: Too much of a good thing can be simply too much for me.