I woke up this morning with the most vivid dream in my mind.  You were in my mind, my dear Jodiette.

I seemed to be at a world’s fair, lots of pavilions and shops scattered over rounded green hills.  Exquisite.  But I had lost my shoes.  I searched through lots of them at store entrances … but nothing.  I was sad.  Strangely uprooted.

But there was a beautiful girl with me.  (I do believe that her name was Jody!)  She smiled at me so warmly.  Our eyes met for so long.  She didn’t care that I was shoeless.  It didn’t diminish me at all in her eyes.  I was Bruce, and that was just fine.  We held hands in the shops and we meandered from display to display.  Sometimes, in a big store, Jody went one way and I went another.  Just as in “real” life, I was happy, knowing that Jody was somewhere in here and sooner or later I would round a corner and there would smile my beloved.

As we roamed the aisles of one shop together, I reached over to examine some article.  I turned to Jody … and she was gone.  I searched the whole place.  Still gone.  And the neighbouring shops.  Still gone.  Such horrible sadness to lose my beloved.

Still wandering, I came upon a tight space.  It was a dead end, surrounded by rough wooden walls.  And then I was face to face with a bearded gatekeeper.  He was a gruff guy who started lecturing me about the need to invigorate.  Huh?  And then he let me pass.

***

Awakened.  Unexpectedly happy.  After all, I had just lost my wife in L.L. Bean or some such place.  I lay there in bed, knowing that I had only lost the physical form of my dear girl.  The gatekeeper had let me pass through … to where?  Some realm, I know, where Jody and I are together – right now and always.  A realm where I don’t even need any shoes.  For I’m walking on air.

Goodnight, Jodiette.