You know, when you’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten, officially dead on more than one occasion and generally abused every possible way you can think of … and survive it all, there just isn’t a lot to be afraid of any longer. That might sound like bragging, but believe me, it is anything but that. Probably the best description is a general lacking of good common sense or at least enough sense to know when to be afraid.
But there is that little period of time when we, like any animal, are completely vulnerable … in our sleep. With our eyes open we can see and sense anything that is coming at or near us, but with our eyes closed our senses are diminished and when we sleep … well, you know this as well as anyone. We sleep when we choose or when our bodies and minds decide it’s time. As children we learned to fight sleep, using every possible means to stay awake for just a few more moments play or for the attention of our folks, but sooner or later we ended up slumped over our parents shoulder, being whisked away to bed and to that land we know so well as dreamland. With utterances of “sweet dreams” and “sleep tight, don’t fight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite” we are carried away to our own beds to dream of great conquests, adventures beyond imagination, into a world where anything is possible and nothing is impossible.
And then comes a time when this blissful world is not so pleasant. We begin to discover fears we couldn’t possible imagine and often don’t understand. For some, the fear is so great they also fight to stay awake, a tremendous fight to avoid the sheer terror that dreams may bring. Reliving experiences in youth we don’t want to remember, remembering combat and all we just want to forget, coping with situations we don’t understand much less have a way to resolve … it’s all there plus plenty more, just to entertain our minds during those periods of necessary unconsciousness we proclaim as sleep.
It is snowing. The kind that brings flakes the size of half dollars and plenty of them. I see the figure just ahead of me in a drab overcoat and wearing a hat that went out of style 50 years before. He is trudging through the snow, not at any measureable gate; it’s more like wandering, occasionally stopping at a garbage can, lifting the lid, and peering inside, and occasionally reaching in, taking something out, sniffing it carefully … and occasionally bringing it up to his lips. And as I watch him wandering down this alley from one can to the next, I hear dogs barking, not so much in alarm; no, it’s more like recognition. He has been here before. I seem to be drawn closer, as thought his soul is pulling me in, as thought I were a part of him but not quite. Not quite yet. Then as he approaches the next can I feel I am inside him, feeling his hunger and an emptiness … more hollow than the largest empty container I can imagine, as thought trapped with no way out, just endless distance of nothing. I feel his cold hands, sore from the years of arthritis, without gloves, on this chilly night. I peer into his soul … empty, hollow, nothing there and I wonder why does he continue. As the world starts to come into focus I realize I am looking through his eyes and I peer downward, staring at the lid of the next can, dented inward with a gentle pool of water on top, and I stop. Looking in that pool I see the reflection. Clear, sharp, a cold and withered face of too many years and not enough of what always seemed important. He stares back at me in wonderment as I recognize him, as I recognize it is………me.
“Alas, poor shepherd, searching of thy wound,
I have by hard adventure found mine own.“
- William Shakespeare
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