Last night I dreamed that I woke up from the immense pain inflicted on me by a thousand silvery needles piercing my skin all at once, as in a concerted, sadistic acupuncture treatment. To make things worse, this was accompanied by a high-pitched noise, similar to thousands of high-speed drills in a dentist’s office. “Who is doing this to me? I did not sign up for this!” I screamed but could not hear my own voice in the noise. I could not stop screaming from the pain. And then all of a sudden the noise stopped, the needles twitched and were retracted. There was a moment of silence, followed by a streak of white lightning and a tremendous clap of thunder. Whenever there’s lightning, I automatically count the seconds up to the thunder – it’s something my grandmother told me in childhood. I counted eleven seconds. Then there was silence again, and in the hollow of that silence a man’s deep, reverberating voice said: “You have brought this onto yourself. This is karma. You sow what you reap.”
The next morning I called my friend the Patriarch, who was having breakfast. I could tell he did not like to be disturbed, and he kept on munching noisily while he talked to me. I told him the dream and that I’d had the distinct feeling that a spiritually powerful ill-willing person had sent this dream specifically to me, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Rubbish,” he said, chewing. “There is no such thing as karma. This is all oriental bullshit. We live once, that’s it – for good or bad. We all have weird dreams for no reason at all. And don’t worry about the reaping and sowing – that’s an old wives’ tale. Just keep on sowing your wild oats, my boy. Don’t let the image of the grim reaper get to you.” And he roared with laughter.
– Vilemir Putanin, February 10, 2023
Photo by Katherine Hanlon on Unsplash
Steer Forth! 