Words by Terryl

The serious face in the mirror of the employee bathroom didn’t look all that bad, I decided, except for the red, puffy eyes. My hope was that this composed look would last the duration of my shift, and that it would somehow hide the internal wreckage from the dream that was still crashing around in my mind like a loose cannon, destroying everything in its path. I doubted it. My poised serenity was a façade, a mask I put on for work to try and fake everybody out. My bleary-eyed assessment reassured me that the crisp white blouse, immaculate black skirt, and polished black shoes belied my crumpled exhaustion. I was satisfied. I had to be. The dinner show was upon us. Presentation is everything, thank God I don’t look as bad as I feel.

We were prepped. The tables were set with their starched linen and polished crystal. Silverware had been examined carefully and napkins folded precisely. Creamers and salad dressings were filled and iced. Lemons were cut. Bleach water and cleaning towels were strategically placed in the pickup station. As was our habit, the staff working the front of the house sat down together in those last few precious moments of calm before the melee started for the evening. We worked seven nights a week during ski season—-you gotta make it while it’s there to be made—-and we cherished this brief interlude to have a cuppa and gossip a little.

“I don’t usually remember my dreams,” I said. “In fact, if you’d have asked me about them yesterday I’d have said I don’t even have dreams. I tell you though, this one jolted me awake like a cattle prod at 3:47 a.m. precisely. I feel like I’ll be too scared to ever sleep again. It was damn sure the end of my sleep for last night. I woke up sobbing and soaked with sweat. I must have really been thrashing, my bed looked like someone had been after it with a rototiller. It was so real! It makes me shudder just to think about it.

“It makes absolutely no sense, Win. It’s not like Barry and I are the best of friends or anything. He was kind of a big brother to me when he was on the patrol here, taking a poor greaseball lift op under his wing and showing me the ropes. We’d have a few drinks together, have a few laughs, do some out-of-bounds skiing together. Stuff like that. You know, just partners in crime, that’s all, buddies. So why the hell would they call me, of all people, to come and identify his body after this horrible plane wreck? His people are down in LaVeta. They could have been there in an hour and a half. I’m six hours away. More like ten in my old Honda.”

“Yeah, I can’t remember you ever talking about your dreams before. It sounds really scary . . .” across the table from me, Winnie spoke with the soft Texas drawl that had made her the butt of many a joke here in ’Dollarado’. We both loved and hated Texans here. They were the backbone of the economy and we’d have starved without them. They knew it, and most of them treated us like door mats because they could.

“It was. I remember every single vivid detail. I remember the quality of the man’s voice on the phone telling me what had happened. I remember driving to Denver through a 10-hour blizzard, and that I had to park clear out in the north lot when I got to the airport because all the close-in lots were full of emergency vehicles with their flashing lights and nerve-shattering sirens. Jesus, I could even smell the burnt flesh! There were these lumpy, misshapen bundles all neatly laid out in rows on the floor of one of the hangars. Oh, God, I remember the nausea I felt when I saw one of the bundles that was far too short for the adult hand and arm that stuck out from underneath the blanket. Ugh!

“So anyway, this guy walks me down the line, flips the cover back on one of the bundles and sure enough, it was Barry. Oh, Win, his face was horribly burnt and all cut up, but it was Barry. And that’s when I sat bolt upright in bed, screaming at the top of my lungs, dripping sweat, and scattering cats all over the place.”

“Wow, T,” Winnie said, “maybe you should give him a call. You know, just to see if he’s all right. Maybe there’s some sort of psychic connection between you. Wouldn’t it just be too weird if he really was in a plane crash last night?”

“Oh, sure, I can just hear it now. Barry always did think I was a fruitcake anyway for what he calls my ’airy fairy’ stuff. Barry’s atheist and skeptical. My witchy stuff is a joke to him. I haven’t heard from him since last season. He left to take the patrol director’s job at that new area down by La Veta this season, Cuchara something. What am I going to do? Call him up and say, ’Gee, Bar, I was just wondering if you were all right. Are you planning to fly anywhere anytime soon? See, I had this dream and I’d really feel a lot better if you took the train.’ He’d send a rubber truck around to pick me up for sure.”

Seth the Chef had escaped the pre-shift clatter and heat of the kitchen and, having overheard while he poured himself a cup of coffee, offered, “I read an article once about dream interpretation. Freudian stuff, you know. It said that dreams like that about death sometimes signify some kind of birth or rebirth. Like a Phoenix. New life arising from the ashes of the old.”

I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Thanks a lot, Seth. Tell me, what made you take up cooking instead of psychiatry? I hear there’s a lot better money in headshrinking. Don’t you have some fish to scale or something?” He recoiled and turned toward the kitchen. I hastened to add, “I’m sorry, Seth, I’m cranky tonight. It’s not you, it’s just the stress and lack of sleep.” Yup, I thought to myself It’s going to be a long-ass miserable shift for sure.

The clock in the lobby softly chimed five times and just like clockwork, our boss Carl sauntered by with his nightly motivational speech. “Showtime, gang. If you haven’t looked at the rezzies, we have a 25 in the banquet room at 5:30 and John Q is lined up out front.” He grinned and spread his hands like a preacher offering a benediction, and said “Let us not forget it’s spring break and that we are here to relieve these geeks of as much of their money as we can. Let’s hit the ground running. T, you got the 25?”

“I’m all set back there, boss. Are they off the menu?”

“Sure are.”

“Well, that won’t swamp anyone,” I said under my breath, as Carl unlocked the door and the chaos flowed into our tidy little lives like a tsunami.

Seth looked at me and rolled his eyes. I nodded and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes one last time before we all started the run for our money.

Seven hours later and immensely grateful to be home at last, I peeled off the white blouse, now crumpled, sweaty, and splattered with au jus; the stockings, sticky from a ballistic bottle of champagne; and the grease-smeared apron with its pockets full of straw wrappers, wine corks, matchbooks, a dirty fork that got past me at setup I’d managed to scoop up before the customer noticed, and other miscellaneous scraps of dining room detritus. What a shift! Wonder if there’s any easy money out there, I thought as I rubbed my throbbing feet. I stuffed my tips in the shoebox that would be their home until the rent was due, took a very short, very hot shower, and fell into bed, drifting immediately into the sound, dreamless, restorative sleep of the completely exhausted.

Next morning, as my stockings were soaking in the bathroom sink, I caved to my curiosity. What the hell, I’ll go ahead and give Barry a call. It can’t hurt. I don’t need to mention the dream. I’ll just say I’ve been thinking about him—-which I have—-and thought I’d get in touch.

“Hello?” A quivery old-woman’s voice answered.

“Um, hi, yes, my name is T, and I’m an old friend of Barry’s from Wolf Creek. May I speak with him?”

“Oh, yes, T, I remember him mentioning you. You can’t speak with him now though, dear, he’s down at the hospital.”

“THE HOSPITAL???!!!”

“My hearing is just fine young lady. You don’t need to shout.”

I tried to clear the lump in my throat without success, and speaking around it, said “I’m sorry, it’s just I had this dream . . . and . . . I’m calling because I’m scared for him. Are you Barry’s mom?”

“Yes, dear, I am.”

“Is he okay?”

“Oh yes, he’s fine. His wife gave birth to their first child night before last. My first grandchild! A healthy baby girl. They’re going to name her after me. We’re all so very proud and happy. It was an extremely difficult birth, but don’t you worry yourself, honey, mother and baby are recovering just fine. Barry’s a nervous wreck though. He hasn’t left their side since she went into labor.”

“Oh! Okay! This is wonderful news! Congratulations on your beautiful new granddaughter, Mrs. Abrams.”

“Thank you. Would you like to leave a message for him? Last time he called I told him he had to come home today for some clean clothes if nothing else.”

“No, just offer him my congratulations, okay? Well, thanks. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, dear.”

These were the olden days when the telephone was tethered. It stayed on a little end table next to my raggedy old easy chair, the one that was the cats’ favorite place to sharpen their claws. I leaned back into its familiar mauve lumpiness as I hung up. My head was spinning and my heart was pounding. My hand was shaking as I reached for my coffee, and it wasn’t the caffeine. Wow! Well, just WOW!!!! What do you know? Seth was right! I’m a powerful dreamer! A psychic! Dang, I should have asked her about what time the baby was born. Betcha it was 3:47. I guess his death in the dream was so horrible because the birth was so difficult. Wow! This is SO cool! Wonder if I can get the lotto numbers?

In the wake of this momentous insight, I became passionate about divination of all sorts, and focused on it intently as winter transitioned to mud season. I got pretty good with the tarot cards, and was fair with dowsing. Although divination had become the center of my spiritual life because of the Barry dream, I wasn’t much good with dream interpretation at all. Especially not with my own dreams. I could sometimes get a good reading from other people’s dreams, but I didn’t remember my dreams any more than I had before the prophetic plane crash, and when I did, they were so bizarre I couldn’t figure out what they meant. What to make of the dog-sized spider with the silky hair on his back I loved to pet? Or of the dream where one of the cooks at the Inn boosted himself up in the grill and burned his butt? My psychic subconscious was speaking to me in a language I didn’t understand when it spoke to me at all. I never got close to the lotto numbers as the seasons spiraled through summer and back into fall and winter.

The fringe benefits of working at a ski area are few. One of them is conning friends at other ski areas out of a place to crash and a comp lift ticket. It’s not like we made enough money to buy vacations, so we mooched them off our friends. When Seth told me Barry was coming and that he’d already used up his comp tickets for the year, by way of asking me if Barry could use mine, I was delighted. None of our visiting friends ever wanted to stay with me. All I had to offer was a cold, hard floor, while Seth had a couch.

Barry had, of course, timed his days off and trip to coincide with a monster storm that had been predicted. Everyone who could pick their days off did. I had arranged for three whole delicious days off from my second job at the ski area in honor of Barry’s visit. I made my living working in the restaurant, but worked at the ski area on top of it to support my skiing habit. That night at work Seth told me Barry had arranged for us to go out on avalanche control with the ski patrol early the next morning. I was as excited about finally getting an opportunity to tell Barry about the dream as I was to get first tracks in the new stuff.

Next morning there were eight inches new and it was still snowing hard, so I donned my cocoon of foul weather gear and headed out in the half light of a new day to meet up with the guys at the lift. I greeted Barry with a hug and said I wanted first tram with him because I had something important to tell him.

I had to shout to make myself heard as I told him about the plane crash dream because the storm was a real screamer. It took me awhile to realize that he was bouncing around in his cocoon of gear because he was laughing so hard. I’d anticipated a variety of reactions—-amazement, wonder, sympathy—-but mirth? I forged on until I got to the most important part, about talking with his mother when he held up a gloved hand and said “Stop! You’ve just got to stop! You’re killing me!” He was holding his belly and his goggles were fogging up.

“What’s so damn funny, anyway, you jerk? This is serious stuff! It really happened. I was told about the birth of your daughter by the spirits and the psychic realm, and all you can do is laugh about it?”

“Actually,” he shouted back, “it’s WAY funny stuff, you bozo.” He was trying to catch his breath and dry his goggles. “I get that this dream thing might have been very real for you, but it wasn’t for me. I’ve never been married. You think I’d get married and not invite you to the wedding? And I certainly don’t have a daughter. My Mom was always a jokester. Where do you think I got it? If you’d call more than once a year, you’d have known that Mom is slipping into dementia. Her mischief has gotten worse. Much worse. My sister and I are going to keep her home with us as long as we can. We keep her away from the phone when we’re home, but we can’t be home all the time. You aren’t the first sucker who believed one of her fantastic stories. Everyone who suckers in says she’s really convincing. However, you are the only one I know of who got to be a shaman or something out of it, who thought they were psychic behind the ravings of a crazy, playful old lady. Ha ha ha ha ha!!! Would you like to buy some ocean front real estate down La Veta way? Make you a helluva deal on it.”

In my shocked embarrassment, I sulked, drawing myself deeper into my cocoon and said “Well, the phone connection runs both ways, you know. You never call me either.” We rode the rest of the way in silence, and did our level best to ski only pristine lines for the three days we had together. I stopped at the Circle K on the way into town to buy a lotto ticket as was my habit, but I let the machine choose the numbers.

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Terryl Warnock is an eccentric with a happy heart who lives on the outskirts of town with her cat. She is known as an essayist, proof reader, editor, maker of soap, and proud pagan. A lifetime student, she has pursued science, religion, and sustainable communities. This, plus life experience from the local community service to ski instructor, from forest service worker to DMV supervisor, from hospitality to business owner gives her a broad view on the world.

Terryl is the author of:
The Miracle du jour, ISBN-10: 0989469859, ISBN-13 ‏: ‎ 978-0-9894698-5-2

AJ Brown, in a past life, was an embedded systems engineer (digital design engineer). He worked on new product designs from hard disk controllers, communication protocols, and link encryptors to battery monitors for electric cars.

A few years ago he surrendered his spot on the freeway to someone else. Now he is more interested in sailing, building out his live-in bus for travel, and supporting the idea of full-circle food: the propagation, growth, harvest, storage, preparation, and preservation of healthy sustenance. He is a strong supporter of Free/Libre Open Source Software[F/LOSS] and is willing to help most anyone in their quest to use it.

Together, we are MoonLit Press where words and images matter.