Tag: Dreams

Caramel Sauce

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

I

“God,” I said. “Could you pass the caramel sauce?” We were enjoying bowls of vanilla bean ice cream. It seemed a small request, so when God grabbed the jar, tipped it to his lips, and chugged the contents, I was astonished. Caramel doesn’t usually flow like milk, but God’s hand was so hot, the sweet sluggish sauce thinned, and he gulped it down, just like that.

God put the empty jar in front of me, looking decidedly sick. My ice cream melted as I stared at him and considered what to say or do. Clearly, this wasn’t about the caramel. Was this a lesson? A parable? A joke? Had God lost his mind? Was God going to throw up? It looked possible, so I slid our silver garbage can toward him.

Sure enough, up it came. God dropped to his knees, clutching the garbage can, retching and sweating, pale as a ghost. The smell of caramel-tinged stomach acid wafted through the air. I wanted to move discretely away, but I would’ve had to step over him. It is never wise to step over the heaving body of God, so I waited.

And waited. I was trying to remember the symptoms of rabies. There were bits of foam on the sides of God’s mouth, and he looked miserably deranged. Why had I asked for that caramel sauce? My ice cream was fine without it. Why do I ask for anything? As minutes gave way to hours, God swelled into swarms of bees, throngs of refugees, herds of cattle, sprouting seeds, and the vast undulating sky. The soft perimeter of what appeared to be reality gave way and I began to fall. “This could be my final fall,” I thought to myself as the lanolin scent of wool filled my nostrils. But it was not my final fall. Not my last bowl of ice cream.

II

In the wake of the caramel incident, God has been more circumspect. “I may not be as stable as I think I am,” she admitted. “Maybe I need more rest.”

“But you’re the definition of rest,” I countered, hesitant to upset her but unwilling to let go of my favorite idea about God. God stared straight ahead. Words ground to a halt and the long overdue ice age arrived.

We froze solid, but God’s eyes burned from within the glacial temple. Brightly winged beings touched smoldering coals to my lips and lifted the sun back into place. This was good. In fact, this was perfect. I had raspberries to transplant, and they need the sun. There’s nothing better than raspberry sauce from the hardy heirloom varieties I love so much.

Did We Begin on the Seventh Day, When God Dozed Off?

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

God’s creative management style is not one I’d recommend for small or even large businesses. And I am not saying that behind her back; she’s sitting right here, watching me examine the dust on the mirror. I like mirrors, but they get very dusty. She listens with rapt attention as I mutter about hatred and cruelty and offer critical analysis of her most irritating creatures. The marvel and madness of God is that she is patient, permissive, and absolute. She cares little about insults, greatly about suffering, and allows all things and beings to spin on their wobbly, narcissistic axes until they’ve spun themselves out.

I offer her the keyboard. She refuses. I offer her the day. She laughs.

 “Nah,” she says. “I have so many days I don’t know what to do with them all. And anyway, the day you’re offering is already mine.” This is true, but also it isn’t. I blow on the mirror and watch a few particles of dust shift around. She looks on, hands folded in her enviable lap–a lap that is a cave, a womb–a lap that’s a luxury apartment in Manhattan, a well-built hut in the Congo, the cab of a semi with an alert and friendly driver capable of backing up without a second thought.

“And she’s off,” God says, making fun of my fantasies. This time, I laugh, delighted at the twinkle in God’s eye.

“Laps are great, aren’t they?” I say. “My friend had a dream that she had a horse on her lap. Imagine that.” God already knows this dream, but we enjoy the story anyway.

Once in a long while, when God’s in a tough place, I hold her on my lap and let her be small, but I’ve never held a full-grown horse.

“It’s always what you can handle,” God says. “Until you can’t.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Dreams are some other language. Flying dreams are the best, but mostly, I fall off ledges, try to save helpless children, and find hidden rooms in buildings I’m remodeling.”

“I know,” God says. “It’s confusing.”

I consider that for minute and then ask, “Well, why don’t you let people dream what they want to dream?”

“Oh, I do,” God says. “I absolutely do.” I look skeptical but say nothing. The inner, the outer; the brain, the mind. At the heart of the great mystery, is it simply random synaptic firings? Did God invent evolution for fun? Did we begin on the seventh day, when God dozed off? Are we the dream? The particles of dust on my mirror? The coming and going of migratory birds?

“Yes!” God says. And the twinkle in her eye explodes into blinding light. I fumble my way to that lap where I know I am being dreamed and settle in, migratory and alert.