Shadow Man

I dreamed last night.

I've been pretty busy, and although I'm used to it, it still bothers me a bit. I haven't been able to do much else but work. I get to work between five and seven in the morning, I get home between ten and midnight...when I'm lucky. It won't go on like this forever (I suppose it can't even though I think I could roll with it if it did), but it will do its damage while it does.

I get home and I'm pretty shot. If I haven't had dinner by then I usually just forget about eating all together. Maybe I have a soda, no nightcaps as of late. It seems I've temporarily given up alcohol. I haven't had a drink in...weeks? Could that be right?

I get home and I think for awhile. Then I watch a little bit of the first season of Lost because I've given up on everything else on TV and am hoping to find a show to follow. I crawl into bed, completely exhausted but afraid I won't sleep, and plug into my Ipod for a bit. I never fall asleep before listening to at least a few songs, but I never fall asleep with the headphones on either. I have to be able to hear the alarm at 4:00 A.M.



I dreamt last night.

I was standing in the lobby of a restaurant I didn't recognize surrounded by people I didn't know. There was a lot going on. I could tell it was cold out, but it was warm inside, the place had a certain glow to it. A cute blonde waitress grabbed me by the arm and told me that my friends were waiting for me at our regular table.

I went up the stairs into the dining room, and realized that the restaurant was really this bar I went to in New Orleans once. Except they didn't look the same, I just knew they were. And there were my friends. A couple of the guys sitting on one end of the table with their girlfriends, a few others who I hadn't seen for awhile sitting off to the side. My old roommates were there, and so were some people from church, and a few from the radio station. Dominic Monaghan from Lost and Lord of the Rings was sitting next to me with a few other people I think were actors and actresses but whose names I don't know if I ever knew. My dead grandfather was there, but only for a second and my sixth grade science teacher (who is also dead) was sitting at a table half a room away making googly eyes at one of the girls.

Everyone was laughing and talking and I sat down at the end of one table with my back up against the railing, and began to join right in. We ate (what I don't remember), we drank (bourbon of course), and we sang (long wobbling songs with witty lyrics and silly refrains). Then the cute waitress would stop by to fill up our cups and laugh at our jokes and by the end of the night we'd ate and drank our fill. It was a good time. A happy dream...

The table quieted down. It was a pensive silence. They were waiting, so I toasted, it only seemed like the right thing to do. I toasted to life. To Happiness. To old friends, new friends, and friends I'd yet to meet. I toasted to today, tomorrow, and yesterday. I toasted to lots of things. And then as soon as we'd finished our drinks I offered to buy another round. But my friends were tired (aren't they always?), the others were in a rush to move on to other things, the actors and actresses thought they'd had enough to drink, my grandfather and science teacher went back to being dead. It was an awkward moment. Me there still ready to go...and everyone fading off into the darkness.

I had my drink alone.

The restaurant was empty, the lights were out. It was still warm inside, but the door was open now and a cold breeze blew in. I picked up my coat and headed for the door. The cute blonde waitress stopped me and put her hand on my arm, "Long day, hun?"

I smiled, "You have no idea."

I walked out the door alone, still smiling. I barely felt the cold.

I woke up for work at 4 A.M., I was still warm.