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Dreaming of Men Dreaming

Robert Crowl

    Hector stared at his grandmother. An exotic woman read headlines above scrolling stocks behind her. Hector’s uncle Joe cooked plump sausages and fluffy eggs in the kitchen. Even the sweet grease of pork couldn’t distract Hector from the old woman’s calm demeanor in light of the heaviness of her words.
    “So this is all a dream?”
    “Yes.” Her eyebrows ascended as her head made a humble tilt of affirmation.
    “How is that possible?”
    “Have you read Genesis?”
    “Well...yeah.”
    “Remember when God made Adam?”
    “Yes...but wh-”
    “God realized Adam was lonely, so he put him to sleep before extracting a rib to make Eve. Even though Eve was made, there’s no record of God ever waking Adam up, hence everything since that moment has been Adam’s dream.”
    His mouth gaped like a cave lined with teeth. Grandma looked at Hector and smiled, her purse squeezed securely in her lap. The attractive anchor with no pores informed the living room that 30 civilians were killed last night in the Middle East by a suicide soldier. Uncle Joe bit into a link, the casing made a high pitched snap and a small cloud of grease plumed at his lips. He chewed rigorously, half listening to Grandma’s rant from the kitchen. Hector’s mouth watered from the living room.
    “So, none of this is real.”
    “Right.”
    “If that’s true, everyone who’s ever existed is a figment of Adam’s imagination, and as soon as Rumpelstiltskin wakes up, this imaginary world will end.” She rolled her eyes heaven-ward. Nasdaq climbed 22.18 points and Rafael Nadal took the Roland Garros crown for the 7^th time according to the luminous screen in Hector’s peripherals. He finally leaned against the soft leather, thinking he’d located a chink in her wrinkles. Her eyes drifted back toward her reclining grandson, and she opened her cave.
    “The world will only end as we know it. We’ll still exist in the mind of God.” She pulled her purse closer to her breast, legs and feet in line and touching thigh to toe. The President was shaking a Vietnam Vet’s hand on the matted screen beside Grandma; while the scrolling bar let the room know that Dow was up 12.75 points. Uncle Joe entered bare foot carrying two porcelain plates each with two sausage links and a pile of steaming eggs topped with melting shredded cheese. Black flecks of pepper and clear salt crystals dotted the yellow heap. Two pieces of toast jutted off the side of the plate like neighboring mountains snow capped with butter and jelly. Uncle Joe landed the plates in Hector and Grandma’s laps with care, his face beaming. He then headed back into the kitchen, procuring utensils and OJ, but after performing this errand, Joe left the living room.
    The imaginary young man sat his plate on the leather and grabbed two TV trays from their wooden cradle. He then ushered one of the mini-oak tables to his grandmother in the over-sized leather recliner. She leaned over her purse and set the piping porcelain on the wood. After propping his up, the two figments ate their breakfast in silence, one tasting a dream, the other tasting nothing. A hot female apparition was interviewing the author of a book on debt freedom. Hector laughed mid-sip, spitting pulpy nectar on the floor, a little streamed down his chin and neck, and onto his collar. Even the pretend woman eating over her purse laughed. Hector couldn’t help but wonder if she was laughing at him, or herself.
    Hector could hear the sound of plastic bristles agitating against a skillet. He imagined the bubbling of suds. He thought of a fig-leafed man sleeping in a garden dreaming of the mundane, and felt remorse for someone that dreamed so small. Beside Grandma, a man signaled toward a blue screen that a tropical storm was brewing off the Florida coast, assuring the living room that it would never make landfall. Gas prices were up 8 percent. Hector heard the faucet rinsing the bubbles from the pan and saw the fluttering of eye lids.

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