It Was a Chicken | The Dreamweaver

I decided to visit a psychotherapist and when I arrived at the practice I was greeted by the receptionist who asked me to take a seat in the waiting room. There, two other men were waiting and I sat down next to a balding man wearing a raincoat.

The man turned to me and introduced himself then reached into his raincoat and removed a live chicken.

“What a lovely hen,” I said.

The man furrowed his brow and sternly corrected me.

“It’s a chicken,” he growled.

I apologized and the man laughed saying it was an honest mistake.

He asked me who my friend was.

Not sure how to react, I removed my woolly hat from the pocket inside of my topcoat and rolled it up. Wiggling it in front of the man I said, “this is my chicken.”

The man laughed and seemed to appreciate my playing along.

The other man looked at me and nodded in approval.

Later, I found myself in a large auditorium preparing to perform with my band.

I was sitting behind my keyboard player’s synthesizers and began playing some of my old songs that I had written as a teenager.

Just then, an older man who was an electrician with the venue staff, said he loved the song I was playing but didn’t recognize it as he admitted to be a longtime fan of my music.

I told him I had written that song when I was eighteen and had only recorded a demo of it years ago.

I began rummaging through my music bag looking for an old cassette or CD hoping to find the demo of that song to play for the man.

Just then, I watched as the head of my road crew, Martin Nettis, who was a childhood friend who had been touring with my band for forty years, was frantically looking through a box of tapes and CDs to try and locate the demo before I could.

Playfully wanting to find it before Martin did, I knew I had a copy in the trunk of my car, so I rushed outside to the parking lot and just as I reached my car, a family approached me and asked for my autograph. After I gave them all my autograph, they insisted on talking to though I was in a rush to look for the demo in the trunk.

I opened the trunk which revealed a light blue blanket covering whatever I had stored in the trunk.

I joked that there was a body under there and the family smiled and walked away, seeming not to appreciate my dark sense of humor.

Then I woke up.