The Last Minute

“Caleb, have you written tonight’s post?” My wife asked.

I rolled over, half asleep, “Nuh-uh.”

I’ve been in bed since six o‘clock pm. I feel like I was hit by a Mack truck. After work today, I ate supper and excused myself to the horizontal sleeping apparatus most people just call a bed.

I feel like I’ve been in the boxing ring fighting Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier simultaneously. And it hasn’t gone well. I feel horrible.

At 10:30 p.m., Charity asked me if I’d written anything. I said no. But I was not fully aware of the conversation.

I was dreaming at that moment. What happened was I rolled over and slept for another thirty minutes.

But in my dream, I said no, looked at my phone, and saw it was 1:05 a.m. It was the first time I’d not posted something every day all year long.

In my dream, I started writing something, then went to the kitchen. Charity had made ten one-gallon jugs of tea and innumerable pans of jello, and pies and cupcakes covered our countertops.

I thought, “How did she do this in one evening?” I was astounded.

Then, in my dream, I went outside to the ten-foot fence surrounding our property, closed the gate, and locked it with a massive padlock.

I looked around at our trashy neighborhood and said, “Man, I can’t wait to get out of this dump.”

I turned on the security lighting around the house, which lit up the surrounding area as though we lived next door to the sun.

I walked back inside the house, went back to bed, fell asleep, and woke up a few minutes later for real this time.

I thought it was 1:05 a.m., but it was only 11:00 p.m. There was no fence around our house, our neighborhood was no longer trashy, and we no longer had security lighting rivaling the sun.

There are no cupcakes, pies, jello, or gallons of tea in the kitchen.

Then I told Charity what I just told you, and she laughed at me with as much sympathy as she could muster.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m exhausted. Sleep is calling. But I hope I don’t have any more dreams.

to the last minute,
– Caleb