Tale of Two Worlds

I woke up one morning and realized that I inhabit two worlds. I suppose that may be a good way to describe sleep. It’s like traveling to another world. My waking world belongs to the sublunary realm of humans. My sleep belongs to the superlunary world of the gods.

From the hypnagogic gates to the final hypnopompia, I wander through a strange ether. The gods guide me through scintillating scenery, regale me with mellifluous oratories and music, and surprise me with curious gifts, amorous women, and ambrosia.

I gambol with the spirits of lost loved ones, now denizens of kingdoms in Valhalla and the Islands of the Blessed. I rewrite histories and rehearse futures, like Shakespeare directing plays at the Globe. And I haunt familiar-seeming habitats that I’ve never actually habitated. Déjà vu in HD.

Sometimes wrathful gods attack me with minacious beasts or other malevolent beings, then pour lead into my legs. Or they assign me impossible tasks, as if I’m some kind of Sisyphean inmate. I bear these hagridden episodes by theorizing that they are auguries of misfortune that previse me of avoidable danger.

Sometimes I’m cognizant that this is an alternate reality, and fly lucidly through walls and roofs and sky and space, with a ration of conscious control. But usually it’s all harum-scarum, where I inhabit the only world I know of at the time, and the script is entirely written by a bunch of crazy gods. My input is not welcome.

Shall I tell you about my latest dream? No I shall not. My dreams are only profound to me, as yours are only to you. The dreams of others are boring. It’s hard to hear one without yawning and drifting away. Drifting away to that other world.

That fantastic world of sleep.

Zzzzzzzz . . .

When The Mail Stopped

I parked at my house to take a little nap, before starting my rounds. By the time I woke up I could barely drive the streets without slipping and sliding, and had to return to the post office with most of the mail undelivered.

No one at the post office had ever bothered to check our snow chains to see if they would fit the tires. And they didn’t fit. Mail delivery was canceled for two days, until we could finally get the correct chains.

When we returned to work, we had a high mountain of mail and parcels to climb, and put in many hours of overtime to catch up.

Heavy snows like this are very rare for our area, but some weather reports are predicting the possibility of up to 11 inches falling overnight.

We’ll see.

Meantime, have a Merry Christmas. And if it isn’t white, just look at this photo and enjoy vicariously. And be glad you don’t have to use your shovel.