'Yep,' or something like that

It was a long journey. I remember talking with a friend along the way on the side of a big, sandy hill. It was a sunny day. He was for resolving it violently, and I argued that would not do.

Then I was in a meeting room, with tables set up on a faded solid-wood floor. People were sitting at the tables, back to the wall, facing the center of the room, and I was walking back and forth in front of them, stopping to talk to one old friend in particular. (Come to think of it, the room reminded me of the small rural town hall where I have been known to vote during waking hours.)

Then, in the corner of the room, I picked up a piece of parchment with writing on it, and my emotions began to well. Through the haze of the dream and my emotion, all I could see were the three big words at the top of the page: "We the People ..." I walked swiftly back to my friend and set the parchment down in front of him.

"This is it," I said with a huge smile. "This is what we worked so hard to achieve." "Yep" (or something like that), he replied, and he bent over to sign the document. I signed, too, and then my emotions got the best of me. I knelt in the middle of the room, overcome with joy, relief and satisfaction. (It was almost, but not quite, as joyful as I felt about 12 years ago when I — a tall, scrawny, unathletic person as a youth who never competed on a football field — vividly dreamed of catching a long bomb for a touchdown.)

I emerged from la-la land and found myself in a warm bed with a small old dog dozing next to me (No, no, she was awake and up; I'm talking about a real dog), leaving myself back there, crying with contentment on the old wooden floor. I decided not to remind my dream self that the spirit of the well-intentioned men who signed that document is endangered in my waking time. It was too good a dream to spoil.