Fingers to Keyboard

There are rituals I’ve been neglecting:  a glass of water on my desk, the office door shut, the music volume lowered (but playing something on the mellow side – and I will spend minutes to hours randomizing until I remind myself of what I was supposed to be doing – writing).

Maybe the action of typing on a white screen will spark the mental fires.  Maybe the repetitive and familiar exercise of fingers to keyboard will substitute for an inspiration I’m not feeling.  True, I don’t believe in inspiration when it comes to writing, which means that I believe that writers are writing… or they’re not.  Thinking about writing is mental masturbation without the lube or the orgasm.  Heaven knows I’m all for the real thing.  Maybe I’ll edit as I go because I’m worried I might offend someone, and then maybe I’ll go back and change what I’d edited because I want to stand by my original thoughts – sensibilities be damned.  If I’m blogging, I’ll cut and paste from Word or Wordpad or Notepad.  I’ll cringe and post even if I doubt myself, which is most of the time.

***

Years ago I wrote for several online environments (I was (past tense) an avid mudder).  I got the jobs on various sites because one, I was constantly sending in typo/grammar reports, and two, I was an avid player and knew I could write areas that were as good if not better.  The certain challenge was not only creating worlds/environments from scratch, but also using interfaces which I was not yet familiar – you get more goodies and privileges as an admin.  Two things pointed me towards a career in information technology:  a strong writing background through my English/Literature degree, and a strong motivation and curiosity about the code behind textually based games.  Both of those things intersected in mudding.

One of the regions I created on a long-defunct mud was an area with two towers, one a flame and steam-filled bastion owned by a male warrior with a golden axe, and the other a monument of ice and silence owned by a female sorceress with a circlet of platinum.  A bridge of light joined the two towers.  I wrote their history and created potential arc-lines that expanded into other areas of the mud.  The other admins were excited.  I filled the towers and valleys with monsters and treasures.  Once I was shown the ropes, I coded triggers and dialog for NPCs (non-playing characters).  The player base (at the time) was growing and I had several volunteers for play-testing and feedback.  It was a small community of less than thirty regulars, and during this time I had my first experience of feeling completely connected to someone else who lived thousands of miles away, all through the magic of fingers to keyboard.  I fell in love, through words, with a man I never met and never will.

The owner of the site shut down a few days before we were going to move my area from test to production.  I like to think that those certain towers exist somewhere.

Deep Water

I put it off several days, but I gave in tonight and did it. At home, I put on the Speedo we bought on Sunday, put on a pair of sweats and sweatshirt and headed to the gym. Once there, I warmed up, did upper body and core exercises for 20 minutes, then I grabbed my goggles and a towel and headed outside. No one else was in the lap pool. The moment I stepped outside the cold air made my nipples tingle. I undressed near a table on the other side of the pool, down to the Speedo, then stepped down the ladder into the water. I forgot about my nipples as the temperatures of cold air and less-than-warm water sloshed against my skin. My goal was an easy five laps.

In high school, I was on the swim team long enough to lose my suit on the first dive into the pool. No one saw my ass or shriveled schlong while I pulled my suit up from around my ankles, but the mortification was strong enough to propel me out of the pool and I never went back – I ended up in cross country where I literally ran with or ran after a guy who I liked. I didn’t have a name for the feelings or emotions or level of desire, at the time, other than “oh my god I love him.” Years later, I would see him in a local gay bar, blasted drunk out of his mind. He couldn’t outrun his demons, and I couldn’t understand how someone so beautiful got swept away by alcohol’s undertow. His name was Mark, and he had eyes as blue as the pool’s tile.

At five laps, I was panting so hard that it sounded like a bad phone-sex call. My ears pounded with the sound of my own racing heartbeat. I let myself float near the end of the lane and I remembered a gym I used to go to in Utah during the winters. The pool was covered with a big bubble and I’d swim at night several nights a week. I used to leave my swimsuit at one end, do a lap, and come back to my suit. Once a young guy (latter teens) came out to the pool while I was at the far end, surprising me when he stood on the edge of the pool and removed his suit before jumping in. When he surfaced, he was grinning at me and I grinned back. We swam on opposite ends doing laps, and I remember how freeing it felt, how unselfconscious, how comfortable it felt to swim. Over many months, we talked and became friends, and most nights if one or the other was already there swimming, we’d both take off our suits and skinny-dip. There was nothing remotely sexual or erotic – only freedom and gliding through the water. He is married now and lives in Finland.

I allowed myself to remember things from the past, and I allowed those things to flow through me instead of sinking in murky memories. My motivation is to be as comfortable in that Speedo as I am in my memories, as I am in my own naked skin. I didn’t stop at five easy laps – I did ten laps tonight. I’m kind of excited to see the churning of these deep deep waters.

Watch

for Weekly Anamnesis #67

When I was growing up, my father and I would gather around the television and wait for the scary black and white shows on Saturday afternoons. None of the shows scared me; they were addictive. I loved anything with Vincent Price or Christopher Lee or had anything to do with secret worlds or strange creatures. My father favored the sci-fi related films and the Outer Limits. We would stare at the television programs, transfixed by the images on the screen.

As I approached my teens, I discovered the horror genre shows on HBO and Showtime. When I wasn’t reading everything I could get my hands on, including Stephen King novels, I was checking out the creepy and scary shows that were getting to me, more and more. Puberty and all those great physical and chemical reactions were in high gear. The changes in my body included a sudden aversion to pickles… and horror films.

My family would gather downstairs at night, eating hot-buttered and salted popcorn, drinking sodas (my father would knock back a few beers), and somehow democratically deciding what movie to see. Sometimes a friend from school would stay over for the weekend and we’d see something without my family being there, and sometimes they’d join us.

The movies that cracked my composure were Friday the Thirteenth, I and II, back to back. With each murder I was increasingly terrified and insanely sure that the space underneath every bed would never be safe. At the end of part I, when Jason jumps out of the water, my friend and I and my mom all jumped and shrieked like school girls. The beginning of II horrified me, seeing the heroine of the first movie so casually murdered within the first 5 minutes. I saw the rest of the movie through the slits of my fingers I’d put over my eyes. I had flashbacks to scenes of the movies for years.

The coup de grâce that broke me was Alien. It took several years, seeing the movie bits and pieces at a time, before I could watch the whole thing. I discovered years ago that it doesn’t help to shake your head or say “don’t go there!” or send prayers to the characters in movies: they will always check the door that should have stayed shut, they will always check around a corner when they should have left sooner, and they will always walk when they should have run like hell. Alien brought every fear to the fore: the dark (underground, and in the hallways of a massive freighter ship), deceptive appearances (traitorous robot), violent death (exploding chest cavities, aliens with extra jaws), and icky mung grossness (slime, robot innards, alien ick).

What scares me about scary movies is liking them in the first place. Why is horror attractive? I’m fascinated with scary movies (as long as they are restrained with the blood and gore), but I don’t watch them without sleeping with the lights on, and I pay the price with nightmares and sleepwalking for the next week (ask Scott). And I still don’t like pickles.

Miss

for Weekly Anamnesis #66

He was everything I said I wouldn’t do: blond, Mormon, and just out-of-the-closet. At that time of my life, I felt I deserved him since I’d screwed up a prior relationship. What a karmic gift, choosing your own poison, eh? In this endeavor, there wouldn’t be any surprises except for going back to him after each time he cheated.

Maybe I needed the lesson of hitting rock bottom. Maybe I needed to know what self-torture was like. Maybe I had to put myself through a situation to find the limits of ridiculous, the limits of patience, or the limits of understanding. It wasn’t compassion that made me say “I forgive you” each time, it was stupidity. Does any reasonable person expect that someone just out-of-the-closet is going to settle down and not want to sow their wild oats? It’s one thing to show someone the ropes, it’s another thing to get close to someone who’s emotionally unavailable. And that was the kicker: he wasn’t available in any sense, but I stubbornly insisted that he could have been.

When I look back (after shaking my head or kicking my own ass, years later), I do not miss him. What I missed was the IDEA of who he was. I missed my sense of self-respect. I missed my intrinsic understanding of healthy limits, which I ignored while I dated him. I missed my own warning signs, flagrantly oblivious to them for the prospects of physical gratification. What I learned was that by holding on to who I wanted him to be, I let go of myself in the process. I don’t miss those days, nor the man I’d never know. Hey stranger, it’s not your fault – I did it all to myself.

My favorite bumper sticker: “I keep missing you, but my aim’s getting better.”

Duck

for Weekly Anamnesis #65

Our plan was to finish painting the interior of my parent’s house and then drive to San Francisco for the 4th of July weekend. My folks wanted to sell it instead of rent it out. My boyfriend and I were both twenty, and he liked to tease me that I was significantly older than him (two months). It was late and I was working on the stairs and he was starting to clean up. Some of the paint supplies were in a box on the banister, along with a roller, and a portable stereo.

I had mixed emotions, glad that the project was finished, but nostalgic about the years I’d spent in the house. For many years, my room had been upstairs, but my last year in the house I’d commandeered the entire basement, eventually conquering my fears of basements and creaky stairs. I remembered how I’d psyche myself because my brother would often turn off the lights as I was going down the stairs, and the last few stairs were filled with thoughts of “the basement monsters” that would rip me to shreds before my fingers could find the light switch. I’m not talking about a childhood fear – I was eighteen going on three.

As I painted in the middle of the stairs, I could see the light filling the space around the bottom of the stairs. The steps would sometimes creak as I moved from the top to the bottom. I could hear my boyfriend rinsing out brushes upstairs. When I was at the bottom, I turned on the hallway light out of habit, looking both ways. Nothing but an empty house. I looked back at the stairs and saw a small patch I had missed. My boyfriend was passing by the railing, putting things in the garage.

I heard a sound of items hitting each other and then, “Look out!,” but I didn’t duck. I looked up and the portable stereo smashed into my face. The cliché of “seeing stars” applies, although briefly, because after the initial explosion I couldn’t see anything. I heard the portable stereo continue crashing to the bottom of the steps, and I heard my boyfriend yelling “Are you okay?” as he ran down the stairs to me. When I opened my eyes, there wasn’t as much blood as I expected. The look in his eyes told me that yes, it was bad.

We locked the house, drove home, and he cleaned me up. I had a two inch bruise and gash across my forehead, and a smaller, but deeper gash across the bridge of my nose, but no black eyes. Two rounds of Neosporin, three Ibuprofen, a bandage on the upper cut, and one bandana over the bandage… and we were on the road to San Francisco, a first trip of many.

Dry

for Weekly Anamnesis #64 (if you are expecting a post about lube, please stop reading now)

Land’s End is not far from the Cliff House and the ruins of the Sutro Baths. Even before I moved to the Bay area, it was one of my favorite places in the world. The first time there was when my then-partner and I vacationed in SF and stayed with a friend (Greg) who lived near the Castro. Land’s End proper is down a steep series of sand and steps and rough terrain that opens in a small, clothing optional beach. Unofficially, the whole area includes the cliffs, the tree-covered hillsides and the miles of pathways. Another name I had heard thrown around was “Devil’s Playground,” since the area was widely known to be cruisey. Greg led us the “back way” towards the beach, single file, as we moved through the foliage and trees. He was nonplussed, but we were both shocked, when we rounded a corner and came across a group of three men huddled together, their pants around their knees. We continued through the trails and came to a cliff’s edge, thirty or forty feet above the water. It took me a while to see the ocean because I could see those men desperately huddled in my mind.

In January 1995, my partner and I split after a seven year relationship. A few months later a dear friend decided that we should vacation in SF, and I agreed. We didn’t schedule things great, since he would fly in after I did and I’d fly home earlier, but the days we’d be there together we knew we’d have a great time. Right before the trip, I got sick, but I refused to cancel the trip. The day I got into SF, I was feverish and achy. I checked into the hotel, had a nap, then loaded up on cold medicine and ibuprofen. At a local market, right around the corner from the hotel, I bought water and a clove of garlic and ate one of the smaller pieces, raw, because I remembered that my ex was big on health-kicks and that he wholeheartedly believed in the power of natural healing. At the time, I would have pissed on an electric fence if it would have made me feel better. I got on a bus and headed due west for Land’s End.

I was on the trail near the Cliff House with an hour before sundown. I had a long-sleeved shirt and jacket and a small backpack. I’m sure I reeked of garlic. The fresh air felt amazing. I walked the main trail towards Land’s End. My internal navigation was working, and I remembered the spot from years before when Greg left the main trail. I didn’t see anyone on this trek, and the memory of those men faded into the mist along the hillside. The cliffs were not enough; I wanted to be near the water. I climbed down the rocks, crossed the small beach and starting jumping from rock to rock into the shoals.

As the orange sun hung above the horizon and the blue skies melted into the ocean, a curious thing happened: the wind changed. The waves crashed into the rocks around me, but the wind was hitting my back, coming from the land and going out to the ocean. I was sick, I was alone, I was grieving for a relationship I didn’t have any more. Oh, I was bawling my eyes out, but the tears slowed with the knowledge that I stood at the end of the world. I was standing on a rock, waves crashing in front of me and sending sheets of water straight up, two and three times my height. I stood there, dry, the water not touching me, the wind creating a wall of water that fell in on itself like a tower collapsing. I stood at Land’s End and at a new beginning.

Light

For Weekly Anamnesis #63

Summer of that year, we flew with my partner’s family to Portland. The plan was that we’d stay a few days before renting a car and driving up to Seattle, then Port Townsend, for his cousin’s wedding, hit the coast and camp in the rain forest, then back to Portland. Whirlwind trip, yes.

My memory is cloudy, here, since I don’t know if was in Portland or Seattle, but we spent an afternoon in one of the cities and had lunch. On the way back to the car, we noticed signs for a “free experiential art show.” The operative word for us was “free.” We entered the building and he and I split off from his family, each of us exploring this enormous warehouse that had been converted into an exhibition of 3-D, interactive (touch, walk on, climb, etc) pieces of art.

The last display was called “Hope,” created in memory of mankind’s atrocities against itself, such as the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears, and the World Wars. One hallway was covered with newspaper articles, paintings, drawings and poems. An attendant stood at the end of the hallway beside a door. The instructions were very simple: remove your shoes and step through the door. There was no time limit.

He and I entered the room together, stepping into a completely dark space, our feet sinking into what felt like sand. We whispered to each other and I reached out and found his shoulder. I knew the door was behind me, so I felt for the door or wall. I kept one hand on the wall and one hand on his shoulder, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the absolute darkness. He saw the difference first; there was less darkness in the distance. I let my hand go from the wall and followed him into the room, plodding beside him.

I could not understand this so-called “art” called “Hope.” If anything, this was “despair.” Walking in darkness, unsure of each step, unsure of what you were even walking through, straining to sense the different hues of black. I remembered the articles and images of war and thought of those who had died, all the the millions and millions of people who had been killed by their own human family. We walked. The black turned to grey, and then far away was a pinprick of light.

The feeling of despair didn’t lift until we were close enough to make out that it was a candle. The floor was covered with a layer of soft sand. Participants in this exhibition left footprints which left patterns like sand dunes throughout the room. That candle burned itself into my lungs, blood, heart, brain and soul. The exhibit made very real the wonder of the grains of sand, the vastness of space, and the loneliness and utter uncertainty of darkness.

Excuse

for Anamnesis #35

“No his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren’t permanent
But change is

…The world is, the world is
Love and life are deep
Maybe as his eyes are wide”

-from “Tom Sawyer” by Rush

For years, I had noticed the small advertisement about “Sacred Faeries” and local pagans in the gay community’s newspaper, but had no solid images of what those things meant. The only excuse that I needed, at the time, was that it was in no way related to Mormonism. I called the number and left a message with my name and number.

A man named Jimmy called me back. The Sacred Faeries in Salt Lake City was a split-off from “The Radical Faeries” in San Francisco, a group I also knew nothing about. He prompted me with examples in the media, but I barely connected. The local group met on each full moon, or to the closest one possible. Often, the group would also observe new moon circles. He spoke of festivals and times like I already knew what he was talking about: Yule, samhain, Mabon, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, and Lughnasadh. Jimmy was the gatekeeper for the group: he answered questions for the seekers or the curious, he interviewed prospects, and it was he who would give an initial “reading” before the person attended their first circle. I wasn’t sure what he meant by “circle.” I admit, I had flashbacks to bad porn with the word, but let it pass without comment. We set a date for a reading, I thanked him for his time, and we hung up.

A few days later I met him at his apartment downtown, not far from where the Greek festival was hosted each year. He introduced himself as “Fuku” (pronounced FooKoo), instead of Jimmy. He was a small Asian man and he wore a long, flowing, cream colored robe type thing. His hair was pulled back into a pony tail that fell to the middle of his back. He invited me inside and I removed my shoes and followed him through billowing material suspended from the ceiling into the center of his living room. The air smelled of incense and there were candles on each wall. He offered water, wine, or tea and I asked for the tea. I sat on cushions on the floor in front of a low table and waited. He returned with a small tray of two steaming cups, sugar, cream, spoons, and sliced lemon.

He sat across from me and served the tea. “We worship the goddess and the god,” he said. I nodded, the faint memories of reading coming back to me. I wondered if he meant goddess and god with a big or little “g,” so I asked him. His eyes smiled into mine. “However you choose.”

We sipped our tea. He set the tray aside and opened a small box. He pulled the silk covering away from a deck of cards, a kind that I had not seen before.

“Tarot?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Medicine cards.”

I looked at him blankly. “But those have Native American symbols.”

He smiled into my eyes again. “We’re multi-culturally inclined.” He shuffled the cards briefly, and then handed the deck to me. While I shuffled, he explained that we would pull cards for each of the nine directions and then we would pull my totem, or spirit animal. With a totem, I could enter as a candidate of the Sacred Faeries. At my first circle, I would choose a circle name, a faerie name. I nodded, already knowing my name. I asked about the men in the group and he said that each person brought their own gifts to the circle: backgrounds and beliefs in yoga, mathematics, tarot, astrology, massage, drumming, and origami. I wondered what I would bring. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed his robe-type thing, how the lower portion had slits up both sides.

“Is that a dress?” I asked him. He smiled wider. “Of a sort.” At my expression, he leaned closer. “No, most of the others don’t do camp. We might all be silly, but not everyone’s camp.” He stared at my legs. “You would look great in a skirt.” I laughed and shuffled one more time. He fanned the cards on the table, face down.

“In a moment, put your hand above the cards. As I describe each direction, pull a card for the one that pulls back at you.” I nodded, familiar with drawing this way for tarot readings. We pulled for north, south, east, west, up, down, left, right, and inside. He laid the cards around me in a circle facedown on the floor. The afternoon had turned to evening, the candles blazing the room into an oasis of light. My tea was hours old. We turned over each card and he spoke to me of totem animals, their meanings, and their messages to me.

Near the end, he stacked all the cards of my circle and had me shuffle only those nine. He fanned the cards in an arc in front of me. “We will do this three times. Choose the one that represents your totem.” I picked one and turned it over. He stacked the cards, shuffled once and fanned them again. At his eyebrow gesture, I chose again and turned over a card – the same as the first. He stacked and shuffled and fanned them one last time. I let my hand move and picked the card, turning it over. It was the same, all three times.

Fuku’s face was composed, but his eyes were smiling into mine. “The card you draw is magical. It means ‘illusion’ and ‘vision.’ Your totem is the Owl. Welcome, initiate, to the Sacred Faeries.”

Mirror, part II

Mirror, part II

“There is no middle ground
Or that’s how it seems
For us to walk or to take
Instead we tumble down
Either side left or right
To love or to hate”

-from Peter Murphy’s “Strange Kind of Love”

Within a year, Leo married his girlfriend. He finished his undergraduate and they moved out of state where he started law school. We emailed regularly, then occasionally, and then rarely, and then silence. During these years, I split with my partner, lived with two women, lived on my own, and then moved to California.

Leo sent emails from China where he was doing some kind of internship. His marriage was on the rocks. His love of the people, the culture and the landscape came through in his poetic descriptions. Each time I heard from him, I could see his amber eyes in my mind. The emails stopped, but I could feel him within the silence.

He emailed me a year later. He had divorced, he had finished law school and he was completing an internship in San Francisco. He had been in the Bay area three months. Could I meet him for lunch? We set a date and time, several days ahead.

I drove across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, weaved through the streets of North Beach and found parking not far from the Italian restaurant he had suggested. A man in nice slacks, white shirt, open collar, short clipped hair and black-framed glasses stood on the corner. Leo had been shorn. His eyes were piercing and he was smiling as he stepped close and pulled me into a hug. I could feel his heart beating. I could smell his faint cologne. He felt solid and muscled. I don’t remember moving away or sitting down at a table inside.

“You look great,” he said.

“You do too,” I said. The short hair cut suited him, but I could see him with his long hair in my mind’s eye. “Very corporate! Someone’s been doing serious shopping.”

He looked down at his shirt and slacks, blushing slightly. I’d forgotten how easily he blushed, his cheeks turning pink, red, and then fading. “Work. You know how it goes,” nodding towards my own shirt and slacks. I nodded back, letting one half of my lips curve to a smile.

The restaurant faded to the immediate space around our table. We stared at each other, and the years rolled back and rolled away, leaving what I knew and what I thought I knew of him as a small lump in my throat and tears at the corners of my eyes. He reached across the table and held both my hands in his. I couldn’t talk. He let go when the waiter brought a bottle of wine and two glasses. We toasted “to forever friends” and drank. While waiting for and during our meals, we caught up. We finished the bottle and shared a dessert. He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs, placing his calf against mine.

“I can’t get you out of my head,” he said.

I was flippant and said, “Are you supposed to?” He shook his head.

“I don’t understand it. I’ve known you forever, it feels like. I’ve always felt close to you.” He took a deep breath and pressed his leg against mine, more firmly. “I was married. I only stepped-out on her once, which was symptomatic but not the cause of our split. I’ve lived on the East and West coasts, I’ve lived overseas. I’ve been hit on by men before and never reciprocated.” I listened. I could see where this was going. I let my face be still. He was touching the rim of his wine glass, letting his fingers make the glass sing in slow circles. I waited.

He looked at me, his eyes searching mine. I don’t know what he found, but he continued.

“I want to know what it’s like,” he said.

Yes, I knew what he was saying and not saying, but I pushed back a little. “Why me?”

There was no hesitation, which surprised me. “Because I trust you. Completely.” He took another deep breath. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

I noticed the mirror across the room and looked at our reflection: two men with empty wine glasses, their feet and calves touching under the table. I remembered him on that New Year’s Eve. I had looked up to this man when I felt lost. Now he was here, looking to find his own way.

I turned from the mirror, locked eyes with him and leaned in close. “Yes, I’ll stay with you, Leo.” He was smiling, nervous, and I felt sadness flood my heart. I wanted to say that there’s no going back, that we can’t unwrite this, that tomorrow I’d be out of his head. We paid for lunch and he put his arm over my shoulder as we walked out the door. A man and woman smiled at us in the foyer.

I would remember him as he was.

Mirror, part I, is here.

Race

For Weekly Anamnesis #36

Race

“Black night white light,
The other side of midnight”
-from Frankie Goes to Hollywood

When I got home yesterday after a 12 hour stint at work, I vegged out by finishing “Taran Wanderer” by Lloyd Alexander, talked with Scott briefly (though we had a lovely and romantical dinner together) then went to bed. I woke up several times, thinking about work projects and deadlines. I remember Scott coming to bed and snuggling and falling back to sleep where I slipped in and out of dreams.

There was a small valley surrounded by tall mountains. A dome of white fog hung overhead, making the mountains starker. Two women were standing next to me. We stood in the center of this valley – a farm house to our right, a small lake to the left, woods in front, and a tall mountain behind us. The ground was covered in ankle-deep snow, but only in the valley and not the mountains. I could see my breath cloud the air in front of me, merging into the fog. I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and no shoes and felt perfectly comfortable.

I turned to look behind us at the mountain. A small shape appeared from a cave entrance. It was a white cat, running, getting larger as it moved towards us. The cat was now the size of a mountain lion. My companions started running towards the farm house door, many steps away. I turned back to the large cat, and it was now a white tiger with soft yellow spots, pounding down the slope towards us. I turned toward the farm house in a race towards the door.

My companions were at the door, staring and silent. I slipped in the snow, falling to my knees and sending up a wave of glinting powder. The cold went through my legs and forearms and I could feel the small flakes landing on my face. The tiger was at the bottom of the slope. The door seemed farther away. I stood and ran, my feet slick with wet snow and powder.

A loud rumble was behind me. I felt a large paw hit the center of my back and I was flying through the air. I landed in deep snow and rolled onto my back. The tiger stood over me, his mouth larger than my head. The tiger’s head moved quickly, its breath hot on my face. I thought “here it is,” and waited for fangs, claws and pain. It licked me. I was so shocked I sat up straight, right there in the snow and in my bed. Saturn, my black cat, was curled up near Scott’s head, purring, right next to where my head was just a moment before. The clock read 4:20 a.m.