Do I really need a reason to casually mention Joan Wilder?

Gratuitous image of Kathleen Turner
I want to be Joan Wilder when I grow up.

For those wondering, I am not dead yet. Although the germ infested elderly were plotting my demise. Lucky for me they forgot the plan about a minute after they plotted. I caught their plague of doom anyway.

I am on the upward swing of this upper respiratory plague. I still sound a tad like Kathleen Turner, which is the plus side of getting sick. But what good is it to sound so damn sexy if you feel like you’ve been beaten down by an ogre swinging a live antelope? Takes the sexy out of all this sexy. Which makes me realize that there is so much more to me than disembodied zombie toes and sex appeal. I also offer a head full of prophetic snot.

Bill Nighy stalks me.
I wrote a song about it.

As I was in my NyQuil induced trance, I had a vision…er… dreams. Well, more than one. But let’s concentrate on the one not involving Bill Nighy staring at me through my bathroom window. Actually the dream was more than a little very David Lynch-esque. I should’ve expected a dream like this after rewatching Twin Peaks. It just took mind altering cold medicine to bring me messages from the white/black lodge and drill them into my thick skull.

Here is the rundown of said creeptastic dream:

I was a child of about 10 years old. I was one of the poor kids who lived in a two room house near railroad tracks. The school bus was about to pick me up in front of a neighbors house. She was little Indian girl the same age as me. We held hands as we stepped up into the bus. The bus had to take a long mountain road with a bunch of steep windy switchbacks.

The driver was “driving blind” as she put it, “I drive this route blind these days. I’ve driven this road so many times I can tell you if one rock is out of place. Just hold on girls, we’ll get you there.”

The little Indian girl and I held onto the back of the other seat trying not to fly out of the window.

When we were dropped off we were back at her house. There was an old hatchback car in the front with a mattress in the back of it. She said her uncle sleeps there when it rains. We walk into the house and her mother asks me what I want to eat. I immediately tell her I’d love some saag paneer if it isn’t too much trouble.

She smiled and said, “I’m glad you like Indian cooking. Most people around here don’t understand us.” I feel proud to know something about her culture that makes her happy.

The little girl and I continue through the house where there is a bald man standing in front of a door. The girl says that the door leads to the basement. The man has a knife in his hand. I feel uneasy about him and ask if she knows who he is.

She says, “No I don’t know him. He only appears when someone important has to die. I don’t like him much.”

The man smiles a toothless smile and opens the door behind him. I walk over to peek into the basement. There is a man hanging from his feet in the darkness. The bald man was cutting off the hanging man’s head. When he was done he threw the head at me and the stairs to the basement disappeared. The head looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I knew the man from.

I turned around and ran out of the house where there was an 80’s era Ford Bronco waiting for me. I got in and drove across the street, but the Bronco went down an embankment and got stuck in the mud. As it was sinking below the surface of the mud I got out and went into the tunnel on the other side of the car.

The tunnel led to a row of towne-houses with iron gates in front. Each house was a painted a different bright color. I picked the pink and green house and went up to the door. The doorbell was shaped like a bumble bee. I pressed the stinger down and it pricked my finger. The droplet of blood began to glow green. The door clicked open. The bald man was standing there holding a woman’s head. He smiled another toothless smile and asked me to come in. He offered me tea from a teapot shaped like a crooked house. I drank the tea and waited for the bald man to give me an assignment. He just sat and smiled.

Then after a long while he pointed to sliding glass door that led to the back yard. The back yard was a cave. I went into the cave and an old woman who looked just like the severed head the bald man was holding. She smiled, she too was toothless. The severed head also smiled as if it mirrored everything the old woman did.

The old woman spoke, “Words, dear. Words.”

I was confused and just stared at her.

She repeated, “Words, that is what you are seeking.”

I answered, “I think so. Maybe.”

She and her disembodied counterpart smiled again. She said, “Did you drink his tea?”

Me, “Yes.”

She said, “That is good. He gets insulted when they don’t drink his tea. For an assassin he is very sensitive about manners.”

Me, “Who is he here to kill?”

Her, “You don’t need to bother yourself with that. Let’s get back to your original question, shall we.”

Me, “I don’t remember asking you anything.”

Her, “Dear, you have been asking me this question for a very long time.”

Me, “Who are you?”

Her, “That is not the question. That also is none of your concern. Do you see this fire? Do you see how it cast shadows yet still clings to its light? That is the nature of fire. It is not always what it seems nor is the power within it. The same is true for the dragon you seek. You have only figured out the light he casts. But you must also look at the shadows to fill in the answers you seek from me.”

Me, “I don’t understand.”

Her, “You will.”

The severed head, “You are on the assassins list. And so is your dragon. That is unless you join his shadows and he joins your light.” The head laughed.

The assassin, “I do not want to have to cut out the heart of a dragon or his mate. He was so kind when I had him for tea. So very kind indeed. Would you like another cup before dawn?”

The dream shifted again to the old two room house next to the railroad tracks. The sun was coming up and there was an open field with just one tree. The orange sunlight caught the multi-colored pieces of glass hanging from its barren limbs and it twinkled. A large black and brown bird flew from a high branch. It winked at me and then disappeared. I was drinking a cup of tea in a rocking chair on the porch. When I looked down a dragon was curled up at my feet.