An Important Message

by

Michael F. McCarthy

Ever since I was a youngster, I have had this recurring dream. It commands me to tell the other beings that inhabit my surroundings a very important message. In my dream, I am magically able to bridge the communication divide that inherently separates us beings from one another. I never told anyone for fear of being ridiculed.

Until recently I was able to persuade my conscious self it was just a dream and I could ignore it. We live in a strange but nice place. The place is underneath a white tower. It exudes heat in the spring, summer and fall months, while in the winter months there is no heat at all! It is home and the rent is free – can't beat that. A unique feature about where we live is that from time to time the beings that my vision wants me to deliver a message to come and stand in front of my apartment building. They open a door, peering into it and taking items from it. Sometimes they reopen the door to put back what they just took out. Very strange indeed! And they perform this ritual two or three times a day. In the winter the door is left open and the beings are nowhere to be found.

Three months ago I noticed our living quarters were much more humid than normal. The outdoors was not humid. That is when my dream became a nightmare. It demanded me to try to impart my very important message to those other beings now! No more excuses!!

My wife, Mackenzie, could tell I was very upset. She cornered me and said, “I am not going to let you pass until you tell me what is bothering you. We are partners!”

I said “You don’t really want to know.” But I knew from past encounters like this that she would keep badgering me until I relented and told her about my dream.

After I told her about the dream commanding me to gird my loins and sally forth to tell these beings my important message. She tore into me and ridiculed my dream. “You of all creatures, who never took a foreign language in school are expected to communicate with these beings! If you do this thing, - you will be committing suicide! The fact that you will not tell me what the message is a betrayal of our marriage vows.” She pseudo-psychoanalyzed my dream by saying, “Dreams are the way the unconscious mind comes to terms with what the conscious can’t.” She could not tell me what the dream meant though. I did not think that I had problems that my conscious mind could not come to terms with. Mackenzie went on this rant for some time.

After she calmed down a bit, I told her, “I am not planning to go into this venture willy-nilly. I will do research on how to communicate with someone who does not understand your language. I will talk with traders that explore distant lands. Perhaps I can glean something from them.”

Mackenzie had to tell my family – my mom and dad, – my uncle Charlie and aunt Ruth, – my siblings – and my offsprings. They said what I wanted to do would come to no good. But each time they told me this I would say, “I have to try to reach across the gulf that separates us from them and establish some sort of beachhead to communicate with them to tell them the message I received in my vision.” To be true to myself, I had to try.

One day about two weeks ago the roof started to leak. Our nice dry home got flooded. Mackenzie was worried that our quintuplets would catch a bad cold and die. I thought the leaking roof was a sign that the universe was unhappy with my procrastination. Three days later there was an earthquake that took out the white tower and caused me and my family to scatter, fearful of might happen to us. Somehow the floor in our apartment got magically dried. Moments later, another earthquake struck and in the hole where the old tower stood was a brand new taller, wider white tower. I took these two earthquakes as signs of impending doom. I had to hurry up and finish my research before it was too late. I had to stop procrastinating since every trader had told me the same thing.

I did go and talk with foreign traders. I asked them how to communicate with beings that do not understand your language. They told me first thing when they go into a new land where they do not know the language is to proceed very slowly without making any sudden movements. “That I can I do,” I thought to myself. The second thing they told me was that I had to establish a beachhead. This was going to be very difficult. I had to point to an object and say its name in my language. Hopefully, the other will do the same.

Just before I left to try to establish a beachhead, I said to my wife and babes, “Goodbye.” They pleaded with me not to go, saying that no good would come of this. My parents, aunt and uncle and all of my siblings said, “Let someone else take this burden.”

I replied, “No, I will not shirk my duty.”

I have to say the first night it took an hour to go a yard into the darkness before I turned and ran back to the safety of my apartment. Mackenzie welcomed me back with open arms and said, “I’m glad you have come to your senses.” But my vision would not let me off so easily. We went through this ritual for seven nights. Every night I would say goodbye to my family and venture out into the darkness of the night only to return without accomplishing my goal─making contact with these beings. Each night I would travel a bit father.

And so one night I traveled from my ground floor apartment to the open door of the screened in porch where the beings were known to hang out. There were three beings on the porch. They were all conversing with each other. It seemed like an interminable time before one of the beings took note of me. He said something like, ”Look in the doorway. There is a mouse. It must be sick. Normally they are very afraid of us.”

“You are damn right. I am quite petrified just now!” I said to myself.

They were not paying much attention to me and their focus went back to their conversation. I had to do something to get their attention so I scurried onto the porch.

Instantly the woman cried out, “Don’t move! he is by your feet!”

I was trying to position myself so that I could be easily seen. After a few minutes of scurrying around the porch and not finding any place that they seemed comfortable, I decided to return to the safety of my apartment.

I returned to the apartment feeling like a failure. I told Mackenzie about tonight’s experience. MacKenzie said,, “You tried to deliver your message that you received in your vision. It is not your fault that these beings are so concerned that you are a mouse and could not begin to consider that you had anything meaningful to say them. I think this lets you off the hook.”

I exclaimed, “I just didn’t try hard enough. I need to try again! You don’t understand. My vision is commanding me to try until I succeed!!”

“You can’t go! I am expecting another litter. I need you here with me!!!” cried McKenzie. She continued, “You could end up dead and where would that leave the kids and me?!!!”

With that exchange, I went to bed.

I crawled out of bed the next day around 10 am and made it out of our apartment without being noticed by any of my relatives. I decided that I would try right now to communicate with those beings on the porch. So I scurried safely (I hid behind anything that would conceal me) to the open door of the front porch and stood there very quietly until they noticed me again.

I then came on the porch itself. Someone screamed “He must be truly sick!”

“There is no need to scream. All I want to do is to chat with you.” I thought.

In a few minutes one of the beings had a broom and another being was holding the door to the outside open so that first being could try to fling me out the door with the broom. I escaped that unceremonious fate by running back inside.

I was so out of breath I had to stop and hide underneath something. As I was catching my breath, I detected the aroma of one of my favorite foods emanating from the porch. I had to go back to the porch and check it out. There were two areas of the porch where the scent was deriving from. I went toward the closest one.

There on a piece of board is some peanut butter. I thought to myself, these beings are trying to make up to me for being so rude early today. Approaching the board, I look all around me just in case this is a trap and the being with a broom is there waiting to sweep me into the outdoors. But I don’t see anyone. I hop on the board to sniff the peanut butter better. It smells really good. I stick out my tongue to get some of the peanut butter. As I am retrieving a sample of peanut butter, I accidentally hit something hard with my front left paw. I hear a loud snap and everything goes black.

I see myself above my body. My hind legs are moving a mile a minute but my body is not moving. In a little while my hind legs stop moving. Five minutes after that one of the beings appears and takes the board with my body on it into the woods where he dumps my body unceremoniously on the ground.

As my essence become one with the universe, I realize that these beings were not advanced enough and not ready for the message. I am at peace with myself. I tried.

The end