Dear Clyde, I am so sorry about your favorite dining room set....

 NOTE:   Hours after I woke this morning from a strange dream, I remained so affected by the look in the ape's eyes that I wrote the story down, trying to get some control over my feelings.    Once it was down on the computer, I figured I'd inflict it upon you.   Enjoy

I walk into the Dimond Mall (correct spelling) near the zoo and see a sign asking for the donation of foam cushions and other flammable material.   I look into the sunken zoo and see hippos, lions, and various other creatures wandering around on the tiled floor in what looks to me like a swimming pool with no water in it.

 

A woman had fallen into the Olympic-sized swimming pool/zoo and was fatally bitten by a hippopotamus a couple days ago.   She had fallen from the open balcony of a fine-dining venue that overlooked the zoo.  (There IS a Dimond Mall in Anchorage.   It does not have a zoo or even a swimming pool.   It does have a skating rink.)

 

The zoo has decided to euthanize the hippo, named Hugo, and relieve the carcass of its head for examination.  The cushions are needed to provide space under the fallen hippo so straps can be installed to hoist the beast onto a table for autopsy and then for fuel to cremate the carcass.   All in view of the public, which has now crowded around the sunken zoo.

 

By coincidence, a girlfriend’s favorite dining set is nearby as is an old couch of mine.   I strip the furniture of the cushions and throw them into the zoo.  Each piece lands perfectly next to the others.   The animals, by this time, have been removed.   Only Hugo the Hippo is in the pit.  As luck would have it, that furniture is enough to cover the entire bottom of this large arena.

 

That done, I go in search of my girlfirend to explain what I’ve done and why.   I find her and her three children sitting in another part of the vast mall.   As I’m explaining, a large, sedated ape is asleep on some nearby foam bolsters.   She stirs, rolls over, and holds out her left hand to me. 

 

The look in her eyes is one of pleading for empathy and help so I reach out and touch the heel of her hand. This ape, named Joy, is the mother of Hugo (who is a hippo, mind you) and she is frantic with worry about him.

 

She stands and offers her arm to me.   I take her elbow and she leads me down the mall to the security entrance of the zoo.   She holds her hand to a scanner, then holds her eye to the optical scanner.   She passes the check, but we walk around that entrance and go to a wide-open public entrance, manned only by a receptionist.

 

Joy and I walk past her and descend part-way into the zoo/pool by a staircase.  One of the biologists stops her and tells her she should not be here.  The deceased Hugo, whose head now resembles a rhinocerus, is already on the autopsy table.

 

I leave Joy with the keepers, ascend the stairs, and ask the receptionist if an animal behaviorist is available to talk with.  I’m asked to leave my name and number, which of course I can’t remember.   I think the behaviorist would be quite interested in learning of my inter-action with Joy, but I am dismissed.

 

I return to my friend, whose favorite dining set I destroyed and will be used to fuel a fire to cremate Hugo’s remains (all in full view of the public).   Shortly, a medical tech appears and asks me if I am the one who walked with Joy, and when I respond in the affirmative, she tells me that I must come with her to be put into quarantine because I might have been exposed to some (twenty-letter) bacteria.

 

I will have to spend the night until staff has an opportunity to test me for the (twenty-letter) bacteria and get the results.

 

I’m escorted to Room #4.   When the door opens, the room is no wider than a regular elevator car, with doors on each end like some elevators cars.   A handsome young man occupies one bed.   There is a short, half-length curtain meant to provide privacy, with maybe two feet in between the cots.   I am told to change into the hospital garment.

 

I decide that if I’m going to spend the night here, I am going to get something to eat first, so I wander off into the mall again.   I wind up in an area where several other people are waiting for the zoo medical team to see them.  I tell staff I’d like something to eat and shortly someone arrives with a huge hamburger piled high with fries and with more fries on the side.   

 

There are also a Coke in an 8-oz. glass, a six-pack of Heineken beer, and a large bottle of red wine.   I devour the burger, the Coke, a bottle of beer, and a third of the wine.   (That should be enough to put me in a coma for a week, if not kill me outright.)

 

Suddenly I’m in a wheelchair.   I start offering beer and wine to the other patients.  My “roommate” Bob is there, but he declines.   I pass out the remaining five bottles of Heineken and open them with a tiny bottle opener hanging from my backpack. (Yes, a backpack.   I also have a duffle bag, and another satchel.)

 

I learn Bob’s story.   He is a safety guard on a new extensive toll road/bridge that crosses Westchester valley in Anchorage, from 15^th Ave to Fireweed Lane.   (This completely imagined road/bridge has figured into several other of my dreams.)

 

One night a few days ago, Bob spotted a man trying to sneak under the bridge without paying the toll.  The man jumped from the bridge.   Bob also jumped off the bridge, after reading all the Miranda, safety warnings, of course, and landed on the man.   The 50-foot drop almost kills both of them.   Instead of going to a hospital, Bob has come to the zoo medical staff for assistance.   He is in tough shape.

 

Still overwhelmed by the interaction with Joy the ape, I go in search of a notebook so I can spend the time in my cell writing it all down.   I find a bookstore that sells notebooks.   One that had about four pages sells for $17.95.   I keep looking.   A used notebook, with all the pages written on, is $.80 and I decided to buy that one.    (This notebook thing is another recurring theme in my dreams.)

 

Before I get to the cashier, though, I spot a red, leather-bound notebook with Margaret R Wood printed on its cover.   I look inside and there is a small woolen scarf carefully folded inside a pocket.  I remove it, intending to send it to my friend Marg.   I buy the notebook for $.90, and return to my “cell.”   Down in the sunken zoo, staff is cremating Hugo.

 

My gear is on a trolley that I’m pushing in front of my wheelchair.   When I open the door to my cell, the rear door opens also and my gear trolley, along with Marg’s notebook, go sailing through and into the zoo pit, which, unaccountably, is filling with water even as Hugo is being cremated.

 

I look around my cell as staff rush to snag my gear from the water, overlooking Marg’s bright red notebook.   Bob, in his agony, has peed his bed, the walls (including mine), and the floor clear out into the mall aisle.

 

I wheel my chair to the zoo receptionist and tell her of Bob’s mishap.   “You’re supposed to be in quarantine,” she scolds.   I don’t tell her about my foray to get lunch or passing out beer and wine to the other patients, who now are contaminated also  if I’m contaminated.

 

A couple guys arrive with a mop bucket and start cleaning up Bob’s pee mess.   That’s when the dream ends.

 

 ***

 

 No wonder I woke up tired.