secret concoctions

LAST NIGHT’S DREAM: I’m in the kitchen at the neighbor’s house preparing some concoction in their sink. I am 13 at clutzy best. I’m in a hurry, I need to get it done and ready and out to the barn to give to a new foal who is hidden there. Mom comes out into their kitchen. She catches me by surprise. She has come to help, she says. I shirk her off, out of my way. She insists on helping. Whatever this secret concoction is, I already have the ingredients, and I’m getting ready to mix them. I don't want to spill. I already know that I intend to pour all the ingredients into a surgical glove,tie it at the wrist and bust a hole in it, once I’ve made my way to the barn, so that the foal can nipple its contents. Mom being there, interfering, is making me afraid I’ll futz the ingredients, run out of time, that we’ll get caught in the neighbor’s kitchen, that I won’t get out to the barn in time. Finally, I’ve got the last of the ingredients in, I tie the knot and race out of the neighbor’s house, down our shared driveway, past their milk house and up into the cattle barn to find the foal. I’m tripping on my feet the entire way, my hair is in my face, and I can her screaming at me that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I keep going. Once in the barn I dig through a huge pile of wet hay and old manure to find the foal. She blinks at me and opens her eyes and mouth wide and waits. Just as I’m ready to pop a hole in one of the fingers of the swollen surgical glove, I realize I’m not sure where the foal is supposed to run once she drinks the special concoction. I hesitate. The foal continues to stare at me.

... the phone ringing, wakes me, pulls me from the dream.

I’m going to be in therapy for the rest of my fucking life!