The dream had involved Amy. It usually does. There had been a mission, a title conferred, and certain promises made regarding the sewer harpies, those ancient, implacable forces of chaos and ill timing that have been dogging my steps since approximately the third grade. I'd woken with the unsettling conviction that something had been decided about my future without my full participation.
I'd finished two double espressos, mulling the thing over, and still the outlook was dark. Even wearing my new beret hadn't helped as much as I'd hoped. Don't get me wrong, the latest choice in head joy did make me feel slightly better than otherwise, but the mood remained in the cellar. I'd become convinced that the Universe was taking advantage of me and not in a good way.
Into my awareness, there slowly crept sounds of commotion coming from the alley behind Port City Cafe. I could hear a dog barking and crows raising a ruckus. I decided to check it out and walked around the building to the delivery dock.
As soon as I rounded the corner, a cargo van came screeching into the alley. The turn was so sharp that the van tilted up on two wheels and plowed through a row of garbage cans before coming to a stop.
You surely recognize the MO. It was Princess Amy, who loves to arrive in a whirlwind of drama. Amy wasn't literally driving a van; an almond-shaped cluster of brain cells can't get a driver's license in the Carolinas, you know that. But her arrival in my head was precisely as subtle as the scene described above.
"Well, you certainly don't see that every day," I said to her as she crawled out of the wreckage. I had to say something complimentary after she'd gone to so much trouble to impress me.
"Thanks," she said, brushing her blouse and jeans. "Kind of you to say so. I feel much better now."
"I'm sure you do," I said.
"Now," she said with a deep breath, "what's all this nonsense about you not having a purpose?"
I admit the question took me by surprise. I recoiled slightly and searched the databanks for the appropriate response.
"Well, in the dream, you said that..."
"Save it," she said. "And now you listen to me. You are my chosen minion, just like I told you in the dream."
"I am?"
"Just not the minion of revolution and wholesale social change," she said.
"But in the dream...," I began.
"It's more like redirection and subterfuge," she said. "And so from now on, you must listen to me and do exactly as I say, and everything will be fine."
Well, I knew this was nonsense and pure piffle. I may be the lead squirrel in the race to the nut tree, but I'm not stupid.
"But what about...?" I said.
"You let me handle that," she said.
"What if...?" I said.
"I'll take care of it," she said.
I regarded her in the long, careful silence of a man who has just been told not to worry about something he is absolutely going to worry about.
Amy climbed back into the driver's seat, started the engine, and as she drove away, called out, "Next time you see me, I'll be driving a semi. Have a good morning." And with that, she was gone.
"What about the sewer harpies?" I yelled after her. Those grim, cackling agents of misfortune who had figured so prominently in the dream and who were, as far as I could tell, still very much at large.
She was too far away to hear me. Or pretending to be, which with Amy amounts to the same thing. I went back inside, ordered a third espresso, and wondered if minions got vision and dental.
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