I dreamed that I had been sick or hurt, and a certain Doctor Julian had sent me to stay in a trailer with a young mulatto woman. The place was a dump, piled high with clothes, mostly. I was a good sport about it, beggars can’t be choosers. The trailer was on the wrong side of the tracks in town. I don’t want the first dream of the book to be a cliche, because it was not. The woman was friendly enough and had friends. The first visitor was a little black man with a long opium pipe. The pipe looked ancient, dried old wood like the bottom of an old puddle. The woman brought out a big glass water bong and wanted to share, but I told her that I was sick and should not. The second guest was a smallish sort of Bigfoot, maybe more of a swamp monster with long dark hair. He didn’t stay long. The third guest was an old high yellow black woman with long grizzled white hair who reminded me of Mama Odie from The Princess & the Frog. She wasn’t blind, but she had the air of magic. She was complaining that my bunk was piled high with the girl’s wardrobe. I could see some black and white sheets and a thin mattress, but the girl said that there was no bed beneath the pile. The elder said that Dr. Julian was going to have to do something about it. The girl went out, and the front screen door kept falling off the hinges. I wanted to lock the door. There was some sort of lock. I couldn’t even keep it on the hinges. Arthur woke me early. Welcome to Dana’s Dreams Four, I suspect it’s going to be a long one.
