The Last Dream

This is actually taken from a dream I had last night. Not "Kublai Khan", but it was vivid enough that I thought I'd try to recreate it.

“David.”

I wanted to tell him that, growing up together, he had always inspired me with his confidence, his athleticism, how effortlessly he had made friends and moved between disparate groups.

I wanted to tell him how much it hurt to see him playing the part of a broken man, and the terror I felt at the thought that it was not an act, an annoying personality quirk that sought recognition through pity, but that it was actually true – that he believed, truly, that he was a worthless has-been, powered only by bitterness and inertia.

So much that could’ve been said. Perhaps some magic combination of words would inspire him to fight, to rise, however slowly, from a tar pit of self-loathing, to save himself, and, because we who lived with him knew he was once the best of us, save all of us.

But all I could say was

“David. My father is dying.”

If he had transformed into a sympathetic, older brother figure of ancient days, I would’ve wept, fallen to my knees, and prayed to God.

If he had grown angry, violent even, and become the noble maelstrom that had dominated the football fields and filled us with such awe and fear with his ferocity, his grace, and his miraculous one-man plays, I would’ve welcomed the hail of abuse and rage, pleaded for mercy, and followed him without question into whatever war he would wage against the wretched world.

But he sat there, unchanged, somewhere between frustration, impotence, and death.

I left him there in his metal folding chair. If I needed him, I knew he would still be on his throne of mediocrity.

I picked up a wind-beaten stick. I breathed the desert air, acrid and heavy. I moved the stick above my head, around, an ancient, unknown ritual, forgotten a hundred generations ago, but invoked now to summon the last of the power of ancient gods to return our champion to us.



In the distance, a muezzin called, singing in a high, plaintive voice. It sounded as if he was telling us that the day had expired, and the sun would never again return.