Twilight In A Tower

I had drawn a Tower during roll call and spent all day thirty feet in the air. The day started sunny then dark clouds rolled in with the wind. It tried to clear and then a second wave of rain. At the end of the shift the clouds were blowing across the sky ragged and torn to shreds.

Later, wife and I were at Kroger. She held up a bag of shredded cheddar cheese with one hand and with the other waved her fingers, pointed down, in a sprinkling motion. I knew exactly what this shorthand meant. I smiled in agreement. It's funny how such a simple gesture can have such a subtle significance.

That night I dreamt.

In the Tower I was looking at Venus shining through the fading blue. I was thinking of my grandfather. He called it the Evening Star and told me when I was a little boy how to find it in the sky.

I was on the cat walk and, looking inside, there was my wife eating cheese nachos and watching a flat screen television. There were end tables, lamps, and all the comforts of home. I looked east and there was no prison buildings and I felt that it had somehow become underground.

There appeared a small group of men in prison garb clumsily throwing spears at me which I easily dodged. As they came closer their numbers and accuracy increased and I was throwing spears back at them. I became increasingly alarmed the closer they approached the tower.

The men started to climb the tower and onto the cat walk. I was inside handing them tables, chairs, and anything I could find of value which seemed to pacify the men. My wife sat in the recliner asking me if I wanted to give them the computer which was no ordinary computer but a state of the art, bleeding edge, super computer.

The men heard her and started raising hell again, clamoring for the computer. I woke, my heart beating fast. It took awhile to get back to sleep wondering if the Evening Star was out at 1:30.