in the garden.

I was dying and all I could do was watch the lines of poetry scrolling long in front of me. Long and white and cursive they scrolled, one after another.

"In the garden..." one began, but it was scrolling too fast for me to read the rest. Frozen, shaking, unable to speak for fear of choking on my tongue, I lay and shook and watched the poetry go by, until I woke up.

I could not believe it when I was awake. I kept feeling myself to make sure, and I was still shaking. Then I sat in my bed in that early L.A. morning wondering what it meant and where to go and what to do.

My room-mate at the time was very Christian. 

I did not tell her about the dream.