Strange Dream

I nap.

Before I wake up, guilty of wasting three afternoon hours , I sit in a dark room, and seven candles behind me cast my seven shadows on the wall. A woman sits in the darkest corner with her back to me. She knits something large and black. I am naked except for a white silk pillowcase embroidered with twin black cherries cinched around my waist and tied through the back of a wooden chair. I feel cold on my thighs. Someone smells like urine.

The knitting needles click, then grow to a Drumbeat, and then a fire glows behind me. Neil Diamond, shirt sequined silver, struts before me. "Brothers! Sisters!," he yells, "Reach out your right hand!" and something clicks in the back of his throat. On his black pants a single silver sequin sewn above his asshole glints as if singing along.

There is a great flame, and Neil falls into a pile of white ashes. The room turns dim as before.

The old woman knits, turned a little closer towards me. I can almost make out the tip of her nose. Her voice, I know, is deep, too deep.

I wait.

I wake with a shiver. Strange dream. It is already dark. My silk boxers are sweaty. "September Morn" skips in the CD player while the old woman who I abducted and chained to the end table knits.

"I like those socks you made me last week."

She coughs. She has emphysema.