when brni goes on the road, i have a little ritual. i bolt all the doors, keep my car keys and my black jack by my pillow and i keep the bedroom door open halfway so that i can hear what happens and see shadows pass by–just in case.
and then i usually have a whopper of a nightmare.
I was lying on the floor when a man came in. He looked alternately like Jimmy Smitts, Peter O’Toole, my first ex-husband and some other actor who’s name I can’t remember. A face and posture that morphed one into the other as the mood changed. There were two men there who were also being held captive but they were in cages. I couldn’t remember exactly how I’d landed here, in this situation, but it seems no one was aware of my disappearance. As a slave, i was expected to do whatever this man wanted, including sex, stealing and wearing a wire to spy on his enemies. I should have been scared but I wasn’t. I was plotting my escape, but at the same time I knew this was all just a game and I could quit at any time.

I was kept naked except for a full length fur coat. The wire was a quite visible clip on the collar. I wondered why other people couldn’t see it. I was supposed to be getting ready to go out and get some vital information for my master, but things weren’t going well. He was raving and angry, complaining about the condition of the place and how incompetent we all were. I had done something wrong and was now required to clean up a bunch of dog piss that was all over the floor. No one was allowed to help me and he was watching to make sure I was doing it right.

Events are all a jumble. I’m lying down on the floor again. He’s leaning over me and asking if I know anything about the slices of liver he just found on the floor. I said yes, they are slices of my liver. He asks what I’ve done. I tell him, I sent the liver slices to a lab to see if I have a disease. He is angry and is yelling and beating me. One of the men speaks up and tells him to leave me alone, to have pity on me since I only did it because I was scared.

As I lie on the floor, I think, this isn’t a joke anymore. Maybe I really am a captive. No, this IS a game and I’m done playing. I get up and go into his room. He’s at the computer and I say, now I want to ask you a question.
He turns around and says, what do you want to know?
I make a joke. Are we going steady now?
He laughs the laugh of an insane man and then I ask, when are you going to let me leave?
He turns menacing (face changes to Peter O’Toole) and yells, you will never leave me for someone else.
I say, not for someone else — for something else — for my life.
I ask, if this were real life, is this the way you would treat your wife or your mother?

He rushes at me and just as he reaches for my throat, I wake up.

I look towards the half-open bedroom door and a bright pinpoint of light flies in and frantically flits around, bumping the ceiling several times and then flies out.

a firefly?
a faerie?
an omen?