Semi-Daily Scribbles

And that dream! The glass-encased restaurant embedded inside the cave? There was even a waterfall. The setting was beautiful. A door opened onto a warm, cheerful dining room with long tables, red high-backed chairs, lots of candlelight, and flowers everywhere. Red and gold was the color scheme. Every station was supplied with wine and everyone looked relaxed and satisfied. I found my table at the back among the hanging baskets and bird cages. Little yellow birds sang inside their steel worlds. One cage had chirping babies nestled amidst a mound of sticks/grass/napkins. Then the monster, covered in bright, multi-hued plumage, descended from high inside the cave. A flamboyant bird off a cereal box? A disturbed child? A wail filled the room as the feathered beast landed on the table and turned into a boy. He screamed with cyclone-like force directly in the faces of my dinner companions, none of whom I knew. One of them did ask where my father was, however. Home, I said. I would soon be next on Bird Boy's hit list when the diner to my left placed his hand on the mad bird's arm. A small gesture, but none of the others tried to calm the boy down. It was enough to subdue him for a moment. I rose from my chair and hugged the creature, now more human than avian. The boy's psychedelic feathers had been replaced with soft, silky down at some point during the fracas. His hair smelled of hay and strawberries, and he looked up at me with big brown eyes. A fiery shock pierced my stomach as Bird Boy squeezed my middle. I cried out in pain before I succumbed to a fit of sobs and hiccups. The boy began to cry along with me.

"Oh how I long for these quotidian repasts to come to an end. My hunger has long since left me. Can we leave?" He said through copious tears and snot.

"Sure!" I replied. All this unbridled emotion made me and the boy wheeze and cough. A waiter came to the table just then and filled our glasses all the way with liquid the shade of sparkly garnets.