I’d met some people on the road. We were going in the same direction, so we traveled together. I was about my current age, it seemed. It was a dark night. We were in a car that felt and seemed like a Jeep but I was sitting the back and another person sat behind me. This was a woman. The ride was rough and we bounced around a great deal.

I seemed to know the woman behind me slightly more than the rest. She said, “You seem like you’re very stressed.”

Laughing, I replied, “That’s an optical illusion.”

Saying, “Let me give you a massage,” she began massaging my shoulders and neck.

It felt so good. After a minute, I told her that. She leaned forward, pressing herself against my back, comforting me. Warmth flowed from her into me. I leaned back into it and turned my head. I wanted to kiss her but stopped myself.

Then she and I were walking together in an airport. She said something about her flight being changed. I reminisced about how I used to travel so frequently, I was often upgraded and never bumped because my travels were a priority. She said, “I bet your travels used to be a high priority, especially the ones in the military.” I shrugged that off because I couldn’t say that was true. Priority was always a complicated matrix in those days.

I was looking at our clothes. Very tall and my age, she was dressed in a light grey suit. I was in a charcoal gray suit. It was an unusual style, almost pseudo-military, and very wrinkled. I said something about needing to upgrade my suit or at least iron it.

We reached the gates. My flight was already boarding, so we hugged and said good-bye. The agent took my ticket and waved me in.

Dream end