Maya Bohnhoff - Pipe Dreams

Recognition made Beck chuckle. He’d viewed similar patterns of tiles in myriad public men’s rooms. He waited, but none of the tiles before him lit up. After a moment of study, it seemed to him that the gold tiles did seem to form an irregular, but navigable, path from here to there, if one had a reasonably long stride and was willing to play hopscotch. The only problem was the size of the squares. Dreamer’s instinct told him that stepping over the edge of one was a Bad Thing.

He was contemplating his first move when he noticed a slight dimming in the corridor. A glance over his shoulder revealed the reason—behind him, the lighted tiles were winking out, darkness marching toward him. He had the creeping feeling that it would not be very pleasant to find out what happened when the square he was standing on went dark. He glanced ahead. About three feet away was a set of two gold tiles set about two feet apart. Not a bad split. He leapt.

He landed, the “reward” tone sounded and the gold squares beneath his feet blazed with brilliance. At that moment, he realized he was wearing sneakers instead of the black leather ankle boots he’d started out with. His dream was nothing if not accommodating. Pleased with himself, he made another selection and hopped again. The third leap was harder, leaving him teetering on one foot. In searching for his next landing pad, he lost his balance and toppled forward, only barely managing to land with his left foot on one square and his right hand on another, his opposite arm and leg flailing for balance. Gingerly, he moved his free foot to the square where his hand rested. He came close to falling again, but somehow managed to keep his balance and work his way upright.

He now saw the wisdom of plotting his moves in advance. He negotiated the remainder of the corridor in carefully planned hops, skips and jumps. The pattern took an interminable amount of time to complete. Beck was glad he was dreaming; in real life, he’d be close to collapse.

From the bottom of the staircase, he took a look back at the field of tiles he’d traversed. The golden tiles, now ablaze, seemed to form a stylized question mark. As he watched the tiles began to dim, just as the previous set had done. He turned his attention to the next obstacle—the staircase.

It was of aged-looking wood—mahogany, Beck guessed. It even smelled of age, the incense of mildew’ and ancient varnish. It was a pleasant odor and it reminded him forcefully of his childhood. A wash of reminiscence came, giving the staircase a time and place in Beck’s existence. Like the checkered kitchen floor, this came from his grandparents’ house in Swampscott.

Finding his grandparents’ staircase in a dream tickled him. He’d loved that staircase. It had given him hours of pleasure as he practiced climbing it without making a sound. This was difficult at best, for the stair was full of the creaks and moans and complaints of advancing age. He paused a moment to savor the memory, trying to recall the formula that would take him safely to the second-floor landing, for to call forth sound from the venerable beast was to loose gremlins in the house that would swarm the stair and carry little boys off to “bedlam.”

Grinning, Beck began the climb. Center tread, far left, tar right, step on the knot hole, skip two by climbing the banister, right of center, center, leap to the landing.

“Ha!” Beck exulted and turned back to give the staircase a triumphant glance. It had been replaced by a slick expanse of oily-looking metal. A slide. A means of escape? A pitfall? Bemused, Beck checked his forward trail, which opened up, not into the second floor of his grandparents’ house, but into a sunny meadow of waving ultra-green grass, teeming flowers and chirping, Disney-esque bluebirds. The sky was at once pink and blue, the sun literally smiled down at him, and clouds looked very much like cotton candy. Such scenes populated uncounted refrigerator doors.

A circle of woodlands surrounded the place tiny, bright orange fruit fairly glowing amid the dark foliage of hip-high bushes. Clown noses. Beck thought, and was struck with the absurd image of clowns skipping through the woods picking baskets full of noses. Picking their noses. The pun doubled him over with laughter. And Marian said he had no sense of the absurd.

He wondered if he could bring her here, tried and was rewarded with a “moo.” He straightened. Aside from the overly cheerful birds, the meadow was populated by exactly one black-and-white cow which munched the terrifyingly green grass ruminatively, as it gazed at him through immense, chocolaty bovine eyes. A bright golden cow bell hung from a blue cord around its neck. This was not Marian. There was nothing remotely bovine about Marian.

OK. Beck thought. I’ll bite. He walked over to the cow, scaring up a score of the bluebirds. They circled and chirped like something out ol an old Warner Brothers cartoon. “Hello,” he said to the cow, because after all, dreaming is no excuse for discourtesy.

The cow gazed back, opened her mouth and said, “Watch this.” She proceeded to rise up on her hind legs, produce three of the outrageously orange fruit, and juggle them. She was actually quite good, Beck thought.

After about thirty seconds of juggling, the cow caught one orange globe between her front hooves, then snapped the other two out of midair and gulped them down whole. She came back to all fours, belched and shook her head, ringing the golden bell. “What did I just do?” she asked. “You have thirty seconds or four guesses, whichever comes first.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be three guesses?”

“That’s wishes. Three wishes. Do I look like a genie?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “First guess.”

“You… juggled clown noses?”

“Wrong. Three more guesses. Fifteen seconds.”

“Oh, sorry. Tangerines. You juggled tangerines.”

“Is that your answer? Juggle tangerines? ” She rolled her eyes. “Wrong again. But you’re getting warmer.” In the cotton-candy clouds over the cow’s piebald head, a slot-machine face appeared, its rollers spinning like crazy. The one farthest to the right stopped, showing the word “tangerines.” He assumed that he’d score a jackpot if he got the right answer. It occurred to him to wonder what he’d score if he didn’t. “What happens if I don’t guess the riddle?”

“You lose.”

“And then what?”

“You’re out.”

“Out. Out of the dream, you mean? I wake up?”

“What makes you think you’re asleep?”

“The fact that I don’t usually hold conversations with spotted cows in Technicolor meadows or watch them juggle clown noses.”

The cow sighed. It was a deep sound and seemed to issue from her voluminous belly. “Do you need a clue? I’m allowed to give one more clue.”

Beck nodded.

“Watch.” The cow turned her brown eyes on the fringe of woodlands where a man in a pith helmet and bush outfit carefully stalked something among the foliage with a large, cartoon butterfly net. Beck couldn’t see what he was pursuing so raptly. He started to ask the cow, but she shushed him.

The hunter tiptoed up to one of the bushes, then leapt forward with a cry and took a swipe at it with his net. Two of the orange globes fell into the webbing. He swiftly scampered away with them. The cow turned her increasingly mournful eyes back to Beck. “Well?”

“He, um. Shoot. Ah, capture… net… um…” Beck opted for the literal approach. “Bushwhack two tangerines?”

In the slot machine another window braked to display the number “2.” “Ooh,” said the cow. “Close, but no cigar.”

“What’s close?” Beck asked, but the cow merely looked away across the meadow, toward the bushes. “Bushwhacked was close?”