Roald Also Said
A Dream Fragment
A canopy of dark green branches shielded me from sight and sun when I stopped.
My head was wet. Breathing fast, I wiped water from my face with both hands and blinked my vision clear.
I was standing in running water. I was in it, but I don’t know how high it was, just that it was somewhere below my waist. To my right, the water ran in a hard and noisy rush, spilling over rocks with chaotic splashes. To my left was a calm pool.
Something white was in the calm pool. Wiping my face and blinking water out of my eyes, I squinted at the thing. I realized the white thing were words floating on the water’s surface. I leaned forward but I couldn’t make them out. Worried about displacing them, I waded toward them.
The words stayed in place. I moved forward until I was upon them. Though I looked down on them, I couldn’t understand them.
I have no idea what the words in white in the pool were.
Thinking about this part of the dream this morning, I chuckled. Classic writer angst dream, isn’t it?
Sunday’s Theme Music
This is such a maudlin, sloppy song. It started streaming apropos of nothing that I can recall, but as I streamed it from memory, I thought about how meaningless the words might be for a younger listener.
“Sealed With A Kiss” came out in 1962, when I was six. It was a hit, so it was on the radios often, but I’m more familiar with the Bobbie Vinton version released when I was a teenager. This song is all about being morose because they’re missing their love, so they’ll send all their love, every day in a letter, sealed in a kiss.
I thought, well, these days, they probably wouldn’t be sending a letter. I imagined youth saying, why didn’t they just send them a text or a selfie? Why didn’t they just Skype?
I decided that, “I’ll send you all my love, every hour in a selfie, clicked with a kiss.”
WTH.
Michael Seidel, writer 