DREAM A LITTLE DREAM WITH ME

I thought it was real, but when I came to I realized it wasn't, I was in my room, my room that I have right now, in my apartment, in present time, but right before I had that realization, I was in the neighborhood I grew up in--in the suburbs of Chicago, in a subdivision, one of those subdivisions where every fourth house is the same except maybe the garage is on the other side and when you go over to your friend's house you look to the right expecting to see the stairs but they're not there, it's the den, and the stairs are on your left and you feel confused and weirded out, like you've fallen down the rabbit hole, but you don't have the world view to equate the feeling with drugs just yet so you don't say anything about it, but you do want to go home where the stairs on on the right and where it doesn't smell like band-aids.

So then I'm out on the street and all the neighbors are out, too, and they're milling about and talking and there's a lot of whispering and ostentatiously loud gasps and I'm afraid they're going to find out what I stole. I don't really know what it is I stole, but I stole something, and I stole it from a friend, though I don't know which one and I don't think it's the one who lives in the house with the stairs on the left that smells like band-aids, but it's someone close to me, who I should be ashamed of stealing from, which sucks, because now the whole neighborhood is out and very, very close to finding out that I'm a stealer.

So I hide it in a bird. I don't actually see myself doing this, but I know it's in the bird's stomach and I'm slightly relieved, but to be sure no one finds out, I put the bird out on the lawn and the panther with the sunglasses eats it. The neighbors are walking around the neighborhood and so is the panther and the neighbors are kinda like, "Yeah, I heard there's a panther walking around." "Oh, yeah. I saw it over there in the court, it's black. It's wearing sunglasses." "Oh? Really? Hey--what's on tv tonight?" And I think maybe it was "Dallas" or maybe reruns of "MASH."

So I go over to the court and sure enough, there's the panther. He looks quite comfortable strutting around, like he's looking for property to buy and feeling pretty good about the neighborhood, but probably wants to know how the school system is. As I watch him, I can start to see a slight bit of haughtiness to his strut, and it occurs to me that he's probably wondering which of the neighbors might lower his property value if he did indeed buy a house here.

Then I see him full on and you know what? That fucker is wearing my sunglasses! MY SUNGLASSES! I can't believe it. Those are prescription, you know. Shouldn't he be having those weird lightheaded swirling feelings that you get when you try on someone else's glasses? But he's not. He seems very coordinated and surefooted. He looks like he could run forever at 60mph, tackle an antelope, eat it, floss, and strut back home to his two-storey, aluminum-sided home and ask his wife what's for dinner.

The panther eyes me and I eye him. I'm standing under the basketball net that the Gutshalls put up so that the neighborhood kids could play basketball in the street (this is where I made my first hook shot and it was where I first realized that yes, I was going to be the greatest NBA player ever) and the panther shrugs his shoulders and walks away from me, into someone's backyard, with the bird in his stomach with the thing that I stole in the bird's stomach, wearing my sunglasses and when I wake up now, in present time, in my apartment, I wonder how I'm gonna get through my ride this morning without sunglasses because it's 70 degrees and sunny and bike rides sans sunglasses kinda suck, even if it is the first day of what feels like summer and then I realize I feel guilty, very guilty, for stealing.

So, um, did I borrow something from someone that I didn't return? I mean, really, what does this mean?