I Am Almost Awake

I fell asleep around 4am and dreamed of testifying as a witness to a kidnapping, sprinkled with visions of being on the wrong side of the most horrible bad beats in poker, losing all of my money over and over and over and over. I didn't just dream one dream, but a series of related dreams. The overall feeling of my dreams were of very old Perry Mason episodes in black and white, although I don't think mine were in black and white. If my dreams this morning could have had a sound track, the music would have been those loud, heavy, disconcerted minor chord configurations, that punctuated every sentence I uttered under oath on the stand, while I testified on behalf of an innocent little girl or maybe a boy. The whole court experience was accentuated with cut-a-ways of a photo montage showing tilted close-ups of the cards I lost with, my agonized facial expression, the mouth of the guy who won as he laughed at my loss, and my hands as they shoved the mountainous pile of chips away from my side of the table.

I only got out of bed to stop losing all of my money.