Backyard barbeque

I’m at a backyard barbeque. Our host is a dapper little man. White shirt, balding. An accountant type. I’m there with the cast of a show and one of the other actors tells me the dapper little man has a most unusual cooking technique. He only disables the animals on the menu before roasting them alive.

I become enraged. I sweep platters of food from the serving table to the ground, shouting obscenities at the dapper little man, ripping the meat to pieces and flinging it into the bushes. The rest of the company backs away from me. I’ve gone crazy, but I don’t care.

To my right, there’s a white porcelain sink, and inside the sink there’s a little pig or boar lying on his back. His belly is covered with yogurt or cottage cheese, marinating I assume, and he’s struggling to right himself, the sole survivor, the one I still might save. I flip him onto his feet and am relieved to see that he can run away, which he does immediately, straight down the hall of a house I’m being forced to vacate without anywhere to go. My carrying capacity for the move is whatever will fit inside my car, so virtually everything must be left behind.

My ex is standing beside me now. She’s telling me she’s pregnant and her sweet pleasure in the announcement is affecting, but I’m not happy. Not happy at all. Straining to keep my voice level, seething inside, I say, “You do know I’m not really on board with this, right?” She says she’ll probably have an abortion after all. She’s crushed. It’s heartbreaking.

I wake up.

(And just for the record, in waking life I don’t believe I’ve ever had occasion to say that I was or wasn’t “on board with” anything.)