A muse in my dreams…

Glenn Monroig's dapper smile
Glenn Monroig, Fair use

I’ve had the weirdest dream just now.

I was in a typical town public plaza; typical of Puerto Rico with lots of concrete and few trees. I hear some people talking about a concert that has just ended; some semi obscure Puerto Rican artist is linked to it, the one that sang the first Spanish rap. I gather from the people’s conversation that it was artsy and cultural.

I suddenly decide to see if I can interview this artist; odd, since I am no journalist. I walk slowly to the concert’s meeting place and see that very few people remain. I don’t see Glenn, but I see Danny in his traditional white garb. Now, what is he doing in my dream? There’s a generational gap already between my generation and Glenn’s, but there’s a deep chasm between me and Danny Rivera. It’s like a Gen-X-er dreaming about Sinatra. Anyway, I decide to interview Danny. Try to see what he thought of the concert, and what he thinks of current affairs in Puerto Rico.

I sit down next to him and try to spark off a conversation. Man, I used to be so timid. But, Danny looks at me with a strange look in his face. Like a trap has been sprung but he hasn’t to fear. He gets up and leaves, and as he does so I keep staring at the place where he sat, then past it. And I see a vision of wild beauty. A woman sits, just close enough for me to look in her eyes and get lost. And far enough that it seems I could never reach her and go mad.

She wears light colored and loose clothing, but somehow it ascertains her curvaceous body. She has wildly curly and long black hair, and around her neck a tribal choker. I feel rapture and asphyxiation for a second. And as I find it hard to breathe, it seems that she starts to. It seems like she was breathlessly waiting for me, but now that I am here she can let out a sigh like saying, “At last, you’ve come.”

She gets up and walks unto me, and sits where Danny sat before. We engage in verbal judo in our introduction. She wins. I give up my name but I can’t manage to get hers. She starts to promise interesting tidbits of information about her, about the world, about it’s people. Some of it is true and some is not. I feel a searing pain, a burning of the mind. I want to write. I have a vision of rolls of white paper falling at her feet. And within them diamonds in the rough ready to be cut into stories, articles, columns, novels, epics.

It is too much! I try to stop the flow, I ask her: what about business?, human resources?, computers!

“That is not what you want,” she says, “if it was I wouldn’t be here.” And then…

A scream pierced my dream, my daughter has trouble finding her sleep. As I feel my wife stir and get up, I lay in bed thinking. Wondering if I had found a muse in my dreams…