THE PISTOL

I had this dream. We were living in a kind of fortress. For some reason our neighbors Marjorie and Damian were living with us, and a number of young men seemed to be hanging out. The "garden" was a central courtyard with high, steeply sloping flowerbeds on all sides planted mostly, it seemed to me, with succulents.

I had made the (for me unlikely) purchase of a pistol. (Okay, folks, sometimes a cigar is nothing more than a cigar!) It was a strange, odd-shaped, black electronic thing with multiple LED lights. The box it came in was filled with and array of electric connecting cords and chargers. I decided it was time to unpack the pistol, charge it up, and learn how to assemble all the parts and use it.

I looked around for the electric outlets I'd need to get the various components charged, but failed to find one. This was strange because there had seemed to be so many of them. I recall Marjorie joking that there must have been "three thousand of them." I searched everywhere without success. Then I thought there might be one at the top of one of those high walls, but the thought of scrambling up the steep slope was discouraging. I asked my long-ago son-in-law, Alistair, if he would do it for me.

Fortunately (for everyone!), I woke before I was able to fire the gun.

(My own sense is that the dream is about vulnerability and the feeling of the need for protection in a world of increasing technology, in which I feel disempowered and disconnected...)