the brick, the slippers, and the 44th

What a dream I had. It was nighttime and I was settled in some home that, now that I recall awake, was entirely unfamiliar. But when in the dream it felt homey and it was a cozy home and my sister, T, was in the living room with me.

For some reason I went to another room, possibly upstairs, and I saw a tall man in a white shirt and dark trousers holding something. He was very angry. He turned around and I recognized him to be President Obama and what he was holding was a brick, either obtained by him personally or given him by one of his aides, I don't remember. But I learned that the brick was meant to kill him or at least a sign from someone that he was marked for assassination.

Obama, I observed, walked back and forth in a huge furious fit and finally started hitting the door with the brick and I could tell he was out of his element. He was profoundly pissed off that someone would want to kill him when all he was trying to do was help the country. That's when I approached him.

When I tried to address him as Mr. President he didn't respond but kept pacing back forth and ignored me. Then I said, "Hey Barack!" He finally stopped and looked at me. I forgot what I said then, but I remember speaking to him not like he was President, but like he was the human being that he is. And he then calmed down and forgot about the brick. He told me we should take a walk on the South Lawn and talk some more. We were both suddenly wearing pajamas and he announced he was "going to take out the garbage".

I reminded him that he better be careful, someone might try to snipe him or hurt him in some way while we were out there, but he just laughed and shrugged it off. We were going to have a nice talk. A humanistic talk.

So I went back to the living room, Obama already had his slippers on and was carrying a large white Hefty bag full of garbage, standing by waiting for me. I knelt down by the front door where all the slippers were, each of them belonging to one member or other of my family, a flip flop here, suede and sherpa fur lined slides there, and other kinds. One small collection of them I sorted through belonged to my late sister-in-law M, who was married to my oldest brother and died years ago when my niece and nephew by them were in their early teens.

Then my sister, who was lying on the sofa in her pajamas and cuddled up under a blanket, asked me to come over and check out some clothing catalog she had and I dutifully did so for a minute. But I soon had to pull myself away and find my slippers, Obama was still waiting.

I never was able to find my slippers or any pair I could borrow to wear out to the South Lawn, it was a cold night out and the grass, I knew, was very green and wet in the floodlights. I was on the verge of deciding I couldn't go out with Obama for that talk because I didn't have the proper footwear and I kept him waiting for me just outside by the front door.

That's when I finally woke up.