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So, when Gwen told me to let go of my anger, I remembered what Raphael said. I gambled that their words were true. I decided to believe in my sister. I let go of Reza’s wrists, putting him off-balance for a second. Then, he went for my throat with one hand, and swung back his knife with the other. He was going for the deathblow.
I had only a split second to act. But I’d been preparing for seven years.
***
I cannot adequately describe how I travelled through the wilderness. Sometimes I walked, but mostly just for the sake of activity. I knew that this journey was more inward than physical. More often than not, I meditated and sought God. I was seeking my place in God’s plans, learning to trust. I found a measure of peace within myself, and then Raphael had to go and ruin my concentration by interrupting.
“Enjoying yourself?” He asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice. Opening my eyes, I confirmed my suspicions and saw an amused grin on his face.
“Is it time to start the next phase?” I asked. “Where are we going?”
“We’re already there.” He motioned with his hand and I took in the landscape behind him. The snowy mountains that had once stood between my holy sword and me had replaced the desert.
“Like old times,” I observed. Raphael smiled again, extending his hand to help me stand.
We walked in silence toward the mountains. We picked our way through the foothills and then up the craggy slopes, sharing an easy camaraderie. We offered each other a helping hand over boulders and gullies, climbing steadily higher and higher until we found a path to the other side.
Peering over a stone outcropping, we looked down over a dry, barren valley. This was a true wasteland, making the desert seem teeming with life. The ground was cracked as if by extreme heat, the scorched earth riddled with sharp rocks and deep crags. In the centre of this plain was a great pit billowing out a black column of smoke. Emerging from the plume like ashes from a fire came winged shapes. Demons.
“It’s the Gateway to Hell,” Raphael said, answering the question in my eyes. “It’s a nexus point. You know how you can focus sunlight on one spot with a magnifying glass and set it on fire? Reza and the Drake have been focusing evil in this one place in your world until a crack opened, letting evil flow more freely into your reality. As Reza killed your friends he became more powerful and drew even more energy into the nexus. When he kills the last member of your group, enough energy will be released to blow open the whole thing.”
I felt shock shudder throughout my body. Raphael looked at me sternly to emphasize his next words:
“If they open it, it will be one way only. Demons will pour out and flood the world. There will be no way to stop them. The Door to Hell will remain open forever.”
“So it’s my job to close the door?” I said.
“No,” Raphael said, his face filled with the trouble this caused him as well. “I wish it was. We need you to use your sword like a key.”
“My sword?”
“It reveals truth. If you strike at Reza at the right moment, revealing him as a demonic beast, he’ll be sent back to Hell. The release of so much energy, timed correctly, will blow open the Gate.”
“But I thought that’s what we didn’t want?”
“We don’t want them to open it, because it won’t close after that. But your sword is truth. The truth of Reza is the beast within. The truth of a door is that it should go both ways. With the key, your sword, it can be opened and shut. We need the Gate to open and close. So they can come out, and so we can put them back.”
I quoted Scripture: “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years…”
Raphael nodded in confirmation of my words.
“Let’s do it, then,” I said firmly. Together, we drew swords and ran down into the valley, our blades burning with holy fire against the dark hordes.
Raphael and I tore into the first wave of demons on the edge of the plain. He carved his sword through a swath of them, knocking them sideways. The creatures snarled and growled, trying to get around his flashing blade. I dove in among the horde, trying to blaze a path towards the distant pit.
We whirled like dancers, guarding each other, stabbing at foes. The world was a blur of dark skinned monsters, snapping teeth and swiping claws.
“Good luck!” Raphael said.
“With what?” I turned to ask, but suddenly I was standing in the middle of a group of human soldiers, in the midst of a small outpost. They turned in shock to grab me, and I instinctively swiped my glowing blade through them. Immediately, they turned and began disarming their comrades. Using my sword to show them the light, I soon had the beginning of my army of peace. Together we began the march towards my destiny.
I, Ethan Pitney, was a fighter growing up. I don’t mean that I got in a lot of fights. I never fought people. I fought to control myself because there were so many situations I had no control over. When no one in your class wants to talk to you and all the other boys pick on you, you grow up feeling impotent in social situations. I couldn’t stop them from trying to hurt me, all I could control was my reaction. As they seemed fuelled by a need to inflict misery on others, I chose to never hurt anyone. I chose to prevent my anger from being expressed.
Now my sister was asking me to surrender that control, to stop fighting. To just let go of something that had defined me since early childhood, made me different from my peers. It went against everything I had ever chosen. Ever believed in. I had accomplished everything in my life through control: sheer force of will.
And now my sister was asking me to trust her and give that up. Trust had always been a problem for me. I might never have been able to make the right decision, but, luckily, I’d had some help.
***
In the desert I had stopped going anywhere until I remembered what my will was capable of. I started walking west, just following my feet, without any clear sense of what to do next. I just knew I couldn’t give up, couldn’t stop moving. It wasn’t long after I started my march that I was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“For a moment there I thought you were giving up,” Raphael announced.
I looked up and saw him reclining on a boulder, as if he had been taking a nap while waiting for me to walk by. But I had seen that rock for miles before I reached it, and knew that it had been unoccupied until just this moment.
“I may have considered it,” I acknowledged. “But it seemed out of character.”
Raphael floated down to the sand on his white wings and then stepped closer.
“I disagree. It’s been a part of your personality for quite some time.”
“Are you trying to be insulting?” I asked calmly.
“No, just pointing out something you have probably never even thought about. Yes, you have tremendous willpower when you’re seeking a goal, and that’s to be commended. But you have a tendency to sulk and withdraw when you don’t achieve what you want, or when the goal doesn’t live up to your expectations.”
“I don’t sulk…” I began to disagree, but then I thought about it. I avoided my friends in university after losing Faith, I shunned classmates after a few were bullies, and I obsessed over Hope when she rejected me.
“Yes, you do. If you’re honest with yourself.” Raphael saw me processing what he was saying. “If you accomplish what you set out to do, you feel good about yourself and the world. When you don’t get your way, you sulk and then fall into depression, taking it out on everyone else by leaving them. I just want you to be aware of that.”
I considered it. “It seems pretty selfish, when you stop to think about it.”
“Do you remember how you made yourself feel better after a bad day as a child?” Raphael asked.
“I’d play by myself,” I said. “Lego, or G.I. Joe, stuff like that.”
“What kind of games?”
“I don’t know. I ‘d tell myself a story, an adventure.”
“Who was the hero of those adventures?”
“I was. Or a character based on me. I lived through my games, and then did the same thing with writing stories as a teenager. Are you saying that I’ve been treating my life as an adventure story, starring me as the hero? When the world doesn’t acknowledge that I’m the good guy, I just block them out?”
“You catch on quick when you try.” Raphael smiled.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. I felt extremely foolish, and I wanted to know why he felt the need to bring it up.
“Because it’s not just your story, Ethan,” Raphael said. “I need you to understand that. You have a part to play, but it’s not all about you, and we don’t have time to wait around until you get over your sulk.”
I felt ashamed at these words, and knew my cheeks had flushed. He found a way to make it worse.
“Who are you to sulk over Mara being gone? She’s been away from you for not even a day, and yet you felt the need to collapse and bewail your fate.”
“I know she’s your daughter, and you must miss her when she’s away, but I love her too,” I began.
“I’m not talking about me. Have you ever thought about Mara’s life? How she feels?”
“What do you mean? I care about her more than anyone…”
“Did you care enough to realize that she waited for you for five thousand years? That she’s watched you grow since birth? And she was unable to touch you, talk to you. But you, you have the right to complain as soon as she’s left your sight.”
I turned away, my face burning. “If you’re trying to make me feel like a self-centred fool, you’ve succeeded.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel foolish. I’m trying to wake you up to your responsibilities. And to the fact that this is all about more than you and your adventure story.” He said this from behind me, his tone kinder.
“What do I have to do?” I said, turning to look at him.
“First, you have to let go of that ego. The need to be the hero. This isn’t your story.”
“It’s God’s,” I said, looking up.
“It’s good to hear you say that. But thinking it and trusting in it are two different things. You’ll have time out here to practice, but try and learn it as quickly as you can.”
“Anything else?”
“One more thing,” Raphael said. He waved his hand, and a scene appeared in mid-air, as if someone had opened a window in reality.
I stepped forward and peered into it. I saw my sisters and Mara at my childhood home. It appeared that they had welcomed her into the family. Gwen and Evie were following Mara, though I could not fathom why. I had picture only, there was no sound to this odd ‘television.’
Mara nodded, said something, and then led my sisters through the house, to the basement. Down there she stopped in the playroom, where we had kept our toys for years. On a table against the back wall she showed them my masterpiece, a city built of Lego. I had built it with Gwen before leaving for university, and it seemed that she had left it on display. Using pieces from our castle sets, pirates, towns and space, we had built an enormous metropolis populated by spacemen and archers, pirates with rifles, and knights on horseback.
“I remember this,” I said to Raphael. “Why are they looking at it?”
“Watch,” he said simply.
I did. Mara pointed out one wall of the city, where we had staged a battle all those years ago. The wall had been knocked down, and the city’s army had spilled out to fight another army outside. Some soldiers were knights, others were astronauts with swords, pirates with laser guns, citizens with bows and arrows. We had let our imaginations run wild.
“Remind you of anything?” Raphael asked. I shook my head. “Gwen recognizes it. She holds the answers.” He pointed to my younger sister, who had a look on her face like a light bulb going off. A ‘Eureka’ moment.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, turning to him, but he had leapt into the air and spread his wings, heading skyward. I was left in the desert, alone again.
Man, I got sick of having sand between my toes.
If that was a surprise, so was reporting for work the next Sunday. I found myself working with Alexander Rothrock, home from school and employed in a meat factory.
“Ethan!” He exclaimed, embracing me on sight before I could even speak. I patted his shoulder awkwardly. We stood in the locker room, where he had accosted me before I could even put on my rubber boots.
“Hey, Alex.”
“You’re still working here? That’s awesome. Really awesome. I was hoping you did. I mean, I haven’t seen you all year. How was your freshman year? I have so much to tell you…”
He was enthusiastic, and it was hard not to be caught up in his exuberance. We had been good friends in high school. But I had struggled all year long.
“You didn’t write. Or call. Or email, which has to be the easiest method of communication ever invented, at least for university students.” I spoke quietly, but my voice was void of any warmth. It stopped Alex in mid-sentence. “I would email my friend Mihnea in the room beside mine in the residence just to see if he was there and wanted to go to the cafeteria. I could have just knocked on his door, but everyone at school did things like that.”
I looked up at him. Alex was a little taller than me, but I held his eye like an equal.
“So where do you get off acting like it’s okay to ignore me for a year, and then be my friend now?”
His sunny demeanour fell into clouds. His brow furrowed, and I could see remorse in his eyes.
“E, I’m really sorry. I screwed up…” He paused. “I could make excuses about how busy school was, and life in general. I got your emails. I just didn’t make time to answer. I’m sorry.”
I looked at him for a moment. His lack of self-justification was refreshing.
“No excuses. I like that.” I told him. “You’re my friend, and it shouldn’t matter how long you’ve been away. But that doesn’t mean you can take me for granted.”
“No excuses. I’ll remember.”
And then we went to work.
I returned to school feeling restless. I wandered down to the common room after dropping my bags. I found it empty so I watched television, changing channels as I found nothing of interest.
“Hey, Ethan.” A voice said from behind me. I turned to see my friend Erin leaning against the doorframe.
“Oh, hey.”
“You look bored.”
“I am.” I laughed.
“Want to see something cool? Get your coat.” Erin said with a smile.
When we got back, I wrote this.
To Speak
I talk
I ask questions
I talk a lot
I give answers
I talk too much
I reassure
I talk to a lot of people
I encourage
I talk to friends and strangers and family and enemies
I explain
I talk long into the night
I debate
I talk using big words and lots of adjectives
I offer polite amenities because they are expected
I think maybe I’ll die talking
When that day comes
Whether it is a question on my lips
Or a final answer
Or a joke
Is up to God.
If God wanted to be cruel, He will wait until I am in mid-sentence, so another thing will be left unsaid.
For, though I am always talking, I never say very much.
I have trouble saying “I am angry” when I am angry
I have trouble saying “I love you” when I love
I have trouble saying “I am happy” when I am happy
I never say the things that really matter. I don’t know how.
I find it bitter irony that I can talk and talk all day and fill people’s ears with inanities, yet when I truly have something to say, I am left with silence and cannot express a single thought or feeling.
I see strangers everywhere
At the mall
At church
At school
At my home
Strangers who were once friends and family
I want to say
I love you
I miss you
What is happening to us?
Why don’t we talk?
I’m sorry
A second chance…
But I can’t say anything. I just talk.
“Hi, how are you? That’s good. What have you been up to lately? Me? Oh, I’ve been busy. Same old, same old. Working hard, staying out of trouble, you know me.”
But they don’t. They don’t know me at all. We are strangers.
We are strangers
And if I tried to explain it would be like two people in a crowded market
Speaking in unfamiliar languages
Shouting to make themselves heard
As if understanding comes with more volume
And they get angrier and angrier because the other person doesn’t understand
And they never will.
They’re speaking different languages.
I cannot find the right words.
For instance:
We run through new fallen snow and hear our shuffling footsteps
Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle
Smiling like children, we race
Shuffle shuffle shuffle
We tread in another’s footprints
Shuffle shuffle
To leave as much snow as possible pure and untouched
Shuffle
It was so beautiful
A world blanketed in soft white purity
New and fresh and clean
A blank sheet of paper waiting
Waiting for someone to make a picture or a story
The world seemed like it was starting over
A fresh page.
We climb over a metal railing and run along the side of the Manor
“Come on”
Erin smiles like a school girl and gestures for me to follow
“Over here”
We go around the corner and she leads me to a black metal staircase
Up and up and up
Each step is covered in a thick dusting of snow
Like white icing on dark chocolate cake
We reach the rooftop and look out over the valley and over the trees and over the world
Down and down and down
And it’s all so beautiful
I wonder if God felt this way looking down on Creation, when He said
“IT IS GOOD”
fresh and clean and new and pure
the sky is orange, clouds and snow reflecting streetlights make it so
and the air seems filled with magic and music
Beauty.
I look at Erin, with her auburn curls and black coat and school girl smile,
And I want to say to her how beautiful it is, this world so new and fresh, how it makes me feel like it could be anything I want it to be, or make myself anything I want to be, how maybe I could start afresh with myself, like a blank page or a field of perfect, white untrodden snow. But instead, all I say is “Wow.”
Just “Wow.”
For a moment I knew what God felt and all I can say is “Wow.”
I am in love with a girl who must remain nameless.
I’m not supposed to talk about her
My heart demands it be expressed
So I compromise, I cannot speak so I write
Only I will not write her name, because names have power
Even writing them seems like speaking, and when you speak someone’s name you put them into the room, into the world,
Even if they are far away, their name brings them close to you
And we are not close right now.
I wish I could show her the world from the top of the Manor
I wish I could explain how the page can be fresh
We can make it anything we want it to be
That I can rise above my past and my fear
The same way the stairs raise us above the trees
I wish I could explain “IT IS GOOD”
And how I can be good too
If only I could have a fresh page, a second chance, a new beginning
But right now we’re not speaking.
I am afraid we will never speak again.
So I speak to stars and snow and sky and paper because I cannot speak to anyone else.
But I will.
I will stop talking and start saying things that matter.
Just as soon as I find a way past the wall of silence between my feelings and the world.
I will speak and it will fall, like the trumpets and shouts that knocked over Jericho.
And I will walk into the world and we will be new and pure.
A fresh page.
I finished writing this, remembering in my heart what it was like to praise God.
“It’s stupid,” the girl was saying. “Really trite.” I think her name was Sonja.
“What makes you say that?” My English Literature professor prompted.
“Well, I don’t mean Beowulf specifically,” she qualified, “I mean, it started the trend in English literature, it’s so old. But I mean the theme itself. ‘Hero chosen by Fate to overcome all odds.’ The lone hero figure is everywhere culturally, from ‘Die Hard’ to ‘Hamlet.’ It’s annoying. Real life isn’t like that.”
“What does real life have to do with literature?” Katie asked. “Isn’t it possible to just enjoy a story? Escapism has its place.”
I tried to rouse myself. Something about this was important. I kept falling asleep in class lately.
“But it becomes cliché. Trends catch on and get boring. After ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ all protagonists are insightful and brooding. After Beowulf, everything from Camelot to modern movies has a singular hero out to save the day. Wrap it up in one package, throw in a few prophecies, and you have Harry Potter garbage with Special Child Syndrome.”
“What do you mean by that?” Professor Fleur said, trying to cause more discussion.
“It’s maybe just my name for it,” Sonja shrugged. “But it’s like a disease. How many stories have you read where the unlikely hero starts with nothing and becomes practically god-like, while prophecies predict his success? It’s boring. Especially considering the deus ex machina endings. I’d rather read something a little more creative.”
“You didn’t think Harry Potter was creative?” Suzanne asked. She loved fantasy literature. “I think it’s full of great magic spells and an interesting world.”
“Are you kidding me?” I spoke up. “Potter’s roots are in Narnia, Nesbitt, Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes. If anything’s derivative, it would be Rowling’s writing. Her genius lies in marketing the themes to a new generation.”
I turned my scathing tone towards the professor and the Sonja girl.
“It’s not a trend from Beowulf. Ancient civilizations wrote myths about heroes constantly. From Mesopotamia to Greece. The Bible is filled with it. Where do you think prophecies started? Look at Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samson… Let alone Jesus and his connection to the books of the Prophets. It’s not escapism, and it’s not unrealistic. For millennia it’s been part of the human condition. People wanted to believe they had a purpose, and that the world was bigger than just them.”
Fiona spoke up from across the classroom: “Don’t you think it’s incredibly narcissistic to think that way? For a reader to connect with the one character that’s significant, doesn’t that isolate them from other people? No one is that important. It’s misleading.”
“When you couple that theme with the deus ex machina ending Sonja is criticizing, you’re connecting with the history of morality plays and Everyman stories. In them, the ordinary person is elevated to Beloved of God, with a soul worth fighting for. You’re not isolating one person from humanity, you’re saying every individual is a ‘Special Child’ to God.”
My friend Erin, sitting beside me, put a cautionary hand on my arm. “You’re a little loud,” she whispered. “Ease up a little.”
Professor Fleur’s eyes widened. I had never been quite so scornful in my tone of voice in class before. Sonja was made of sterner stuff, however.
“Putting something in a book, or even a lot of books, doesn’t make it true or even important. And repeating the trend isn’t creative.”
“It is if you subvert it. Use what people know, and their preconceptions, and then twist them, make them stand on their head. With that you can be counter-cultural, offer critique of prejudices and preconceptions. William Shakespeare does it in ‘Macbeth,’ where your ‘Special Child’ of prophecy ultimately turns out to be a tragic villain, brought low by hubris.”
Erin pulled on my shirt, trying to get me to sit down. Apparently, I had stood up in the middle of class. It didn’t slow me down.
“He does it again in ‘Titus,’ criticizing Britain by criticizing its Roman influence, by holding it up for people to see. He doesn’t come out and say ‘Hey our system is misogynist and hierarchical and unfair,’ he does it through subtlety. That’s why he’s the only writer of his era who didn’t go to prison.”
“I still think it’s uncreative. Find a new way to say something, don’t just stand on someone else’s ideas,” a young man spoke up, Patrick. “Just tell the story. No one needs all that symbolism.”
“What’s wrong with symbolism?” Another young man, Allan, said. “It’s a rich tradition, connected to folklore and old wives’ tales. It’s historical.”
“Symbolism connects you to universal truths of the human condition,” I backed him up. “You get in touch with Jung’s collective unconscious, the thoughts that are shared with the entire race. Everyone can understand and become emotionally invested in the story. And that opens the door to new ideas layered on the old ones, for critique, for allegory, for transformation. There’s nothing wrong with a clean story, but there’s also nothing wrong with one with layers. Sure, some authors fail to use the themes creatively. But that doesn’t make the themes themselves irrelevant. Holden Caufield’s misery doesn’t suddenly make depression trite. Tell that to someone who’s suffering.”
“I think we’ve had an engaging discussion today…” the professor tried to end on a positive note.
“I think I’m tired of listening.” I said, mainly to myself.
WHAM! I put my opponent through a table, viciously knocking him into twitching unconsciousness with a powerful throw. He lay on the ground surrounded by splintered wood and blood from his gushing forehead. I raised my fists in victory as the crowd chanted for me. Dan gave me a high five as I passed back the controller and he took his turn on the video wrestling game.
As we pummelled our opponents with chairs, delivered brutal slams and kicks, bludgeoned them into comas and showed no mercy, I discovered an inner mean streak. I savoured the visceral thrill of combat, even in this simulated form. I took out petty frustrations and long buried wrath on my digital enemies, unleashing my inner demons.
Dan endlessly encouraged me in these endeavours. We worked out at the gym, jogged up the hill, ate in the cafeteria, watched television and did our homework. He was doing his best to stay out of trouble for Teri’s sake, and using me as a template for virtue. But through it all he was quietly mocking others, pointing out flaws, making fun. He might have slowly begun a process of becoming a better person, but I was swiftly becoming meaner.
“Look at fatty,” he’d point at someone on a treadmill at the gym, “What a pathetic loser. She needs to stop kidding herself. Running for twenty minutes won’t fix the extra large pizza she’s eating for dinner.”
Then at the cafeteria, Dan would nod my attention towards some skinny computer nerd. “Bet he’s a virgin until he’s fifty, and I don’t think rubber dolls count.”
I would laugh, and feel sick to my stomach, and laugh some more. I felt bad, but somehow that felt good. As a child, I had been the target of Dan’s taunts. It was nice to be on his side for once. Or, that’s what I told myself. A small voice inside said that the child in me would hate what I’d become.
I tried to shake off thoughts about what I was doing. I felt like a sea of memory, drowning in the past. My conscious thoughts bobbed like a cork, pushed into the depths by external forces, making me remember things better forgotten. I tried to distract myself, stay on the surface of my mind where it was safer. Where there was no sign of the shipwrecks of the past, or the sea monsters lurking amidst the flotsam.
I’d gotten into the habit of decorating my room with my sketches. I stood there after dinner one day, and looked around the room. My drawings had taken on a more sinister edge, as comic book characters from my childhood gained spikes, claws and weapons. I thought about it. I wrote regularly, and realized that stories I was working on had become more violent, dealing with the shadow side of life. Poetry dealt with anguish, misery, my fears from a long year of uncertainty. I was more sarcastic, more reclusive than ever, and I knew it. I enjoyed it.
I could see it happening, like watching the sun go down and shadows lengthen at evening, shrouding the world as darkness falls. And part of me celebrated the coming night.
I called Lil on Sunday night after returning to campus. I hoped that a week to cool off would give us both some perspective. I also hoped that it would give me something to say.
“Hello?” She answered.
“I’m sorry about the other week.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I could have chosen my words better.”
“Like?”
“Like I could have said thank you for your generosity. I appreciate it. But I also need to make my own way, and this is it. I hope you can respect that I don’t want anyone’s help.”
“So you’re going to let pride get in the way of being with me?”
I could hear the anger in her voice.
“No. I’m saying you deserve someone great. And I won’t feel great unless I get there my own way. As a compromise, I thought I could take you out Thursday instead.”
“You have class on Friday.”
“I’m an A student. I don’t think you need to worry.”
“Meet me at the subway at seven.”
***
I spotted Angelina in the library, sitting at a big table with several books, industriously studying on a Sunday night. I sat down across from her, tilting my head sideways to catch her eye and break her concentration with a wry grin.
“You’re back. How was work?”
“The usual. How were things here?”
“We had a movie night, and went dancing on Saturday. You missed a good time.” She teased.
“Uh huh. Listen, uh, do you know anything about dreams?”
She blinked. “Never been asked that before. There’s the standard psychology response, dreams being recycled data from our subconscious that’s not being addressed in our waking life. Some religions hold that dreams are divine messages. Why?”
“Just that I had a strange one, and I don’t know what to think of it.”
“Oh. Well, when a dream seems important to the dreamer, it makes it even more significant to their lives. Either it’s something you’re trying to tell yourself, or it’s an important communiqué from God.” Angelina almost laughed. “What did you dream?”
“I dreamed that you told me ‘sometimes friends hold the keys to the doors in our souls.’ Any special insight?”
She considered it for a moment. “Not specifically. Maybe it just means to pay attention to what your friends have to say. You might learn something.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t have any ‘special insight’,” she said. “Dreams are supposed to be more symbolic than real, anyway.”
I nodded. For the rest of the day I wandered around, trying to think. I told myself that if I unravelled the symbols, I’d understand the dream. Unfortunately, no easy answers came.
No Man an Island 