The Big Dream

This morning I had a Really Big Dream. Just woke from it so while it's fresh inside my mind and my body I thought I'd tell it to you.

I'm in some kind of low-life America flea market in a big vacant lot surrounded by homes and am piling lots of stuff into the back of my Subaru, interacting with urchins and folk and in the chaos I somehow acquire an artificial woman. She is fully clothed, can't speak, but she's obviously very much alive, like some great big pet animal. She is tall, busty, has long dark hair, dressed like a civilized gypsy and has a very intense look in her soulful brown eyes. She makes soft, inarticulate sounds, and her body feels warm and responsive through her dress.

She didn't have a name but let's call her Lola.

One of the matriarchs at the flea market offers to train Lola by installing her in a Muslim whore house so she is taken from me and next thing I know am sitting in the corner of the anteroom of a Muslim whorehouse.

Neatly dressed Muslim men (and young boys too!) are milling around in the anteroom. None are in robes, all in old-fashioned Western dress. Lots of snappy suits and fedora hats, like the outfits worn by gangsters in "Guys and Dolls".

It's obvious that I am located near the EXIT to Lola's room because all of the men and boys (all clothed) are filled with awe, talking quietly to one another in a language I cannot understand. One big mute Muslim stands next to me with an unlit cigarette in his hand.

Some of the men and most of the boys when they come out of Lola's corridor make a gesture I have never seen before which I interpret as a religious gesture, a kind of Muslim Sign of the Cross.

The gesture looks like this. You raise your fingers to your lips as if to kiss them and then place that hand on your heart. The gesture was made casually as if practiced hundreds of times. Not all of the men made this gesture but most of the little boys did. I interpreted it as a sign of religious awe, as if one had just encountered God, or some high religious Master.

I suddenly become aware of the Muslim standing next to me with his unlit cigarette. Hatless, bald, in shirtsleeves, built like a bouncer. Sitting in my chair with a nylon sport jacket on my lap, I look up at him and go through my jacket's many pockets looking for a lighter. As I am searching for my lighter, the Muslim bends down and whispers to me in perfect English: "How is she able to know just what we want? Is she picking up electromagnetic signals from our brains?"

"I don't know," I answer. "My guess is the more men she's with the better she knows what men are looking for."

Then I wake from the crowded anteroom into my little bedroom in Boulder Creek--my black cat Onyx curled up asleep near my feet. Stunned. Half of me is still in that anteroom talking to Abdul.

Dream reminded me a bit of my poem: The New Sex Robot. Also motivates me now to spend more time at flea markets and garage sales.