Val's Flaming Globes of Sigmund Moment

The mind is a funny thing. It toys with you, showing off, trying to impress you like Tom Sawyer walking along the fence in front of Becky Thatcher's house.

Let the record show that Val does not write poetry. She has dabbled now and then, without knowing what she was doing. At one point in her career, when she taught middle school double-dose classes, she consulted her BFF Google in order to stay one step ahead of her sixth grade Comm Arts students. Val has been known to copy well-known poems at times. Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, you know.

Last night, Val awoke at 3:30 a.m. from the most detailed poetry dream ever. She was at a spa retreat with her school. Someone had discovered a lost tow-headed toddler, and Val agreed to raise him. Her principal found a modern-day Little Golden Book, two copies, in fact, and suggested that Val read it to the toddler. Val agreed. She opened up that book, about a little train, and story time commenced. Val was wearing her present-day glasses, the bifocals which are the worst set of spectacles Val has ever worn in her life. So when she tried to read, she could not see the words correctly.

You know how when you read aloud, you kind of unconsciously scan ahead to the next line? It wasn't working for Val. She stammered and sputtered, leaving off at the end of a line like a beginning reader when the sentence continues to the next page. Val squinted and frowned. The tow-headed toddler cared not one whit. He was happy with Val's effort. But Mr. Principal started reading his own copy aloud to his wife, after giving Val a couple of quizzical glances.

"You know I don't read like this! It's my glasses! You've been in my room and heard me read."

Mr. Principal acknowledged that he had. And continued reading to his wife. Val went back to tormenting the oblivious toddler with her story. Because in the dream, that story was one that Val had written.

Here's the odd part. It was a real story. Rhyming. In ABAB CDCD EFEF. That's all I saw. I didn't get to turn the page, because I woke up. But I saw every line once I squinted it out. It made sense. Times New Roman on the blue-fading-to-white page, with a picture of a train at the top. Unfortunately, I do not keep a notepad and flashlight on the nightstand to write down my works of genius.

Very odd, such detail.

I don't know what happened to the tow-headed toddler.