A story about a dream

My ideas come from a lot of places. Sometimes a news story will catch my interest or I'll just see something out of the corner of my eye that will cause me to reflect. Or someone will say a line to me that just stays with me for years afterwards until I can finally place it in a story where it belongs.

What follows came to me in a dream a few years back. I wrote it pretty much without thinking and without editing. In all honesty, it is probably the favorite thing that I've written in the past five years. Since I started the blog a few months back I knew that I would one day post this but wanted to wait until the right moment. Tonight I needed to reread the story and remind myself that the moments in it remain true. And I figured that the time is right. Hope you enjoy it.



I saw my angel today, leaning over the balcony on Orleans. She stood there, blonde hair drifting over her face, watching as the first tourists wobbled their way through the French Quarter.

I was across the street in my overpriced room, morning coffee in hand, the heat slowly waking me. I watched as she glanced around, as her robe twisted about her, as she tried to understand the stories that walked about her. So, I wondered about her story.

I wondered how someone that beautiful, with the face of an angel, with eyes that could pierce your soul from across the street, could be looking out so alone. How her apartment behind her could appear to be so bare, how someone could be about without even a cup of coffee to start the day. I wondered if she was an artist, or a poet, or one of the many who just wander the streets of New Orleans from job to job.

I’m just here to find myself, personally. Oh, and if I happen to write the great American novel while I’m here that would be a plus. Faulkner and Fitzgerald both lived blocks away from here with their angels floating about them.

Maybe that is her story. She is the muse who walks the street of New Orleans. A Calliope of the bayou, inspiring fisherman to become painters, dockworkers to sing for joy, tourists, well, to wonder why they didn’t live here to begin with. She is the girl you see from the corner of your eye, as you walk the Quarter. You search but you never find her, but her beauty is written in your soul and from that moment on wherever you look, she is always there. She is the love that escapes you, the few moments of infinity that define life, the truth behind all of the stories ever written.

We are looking at each other right now, trying to decipher the secrets in each other. I could call out to her, ask her to inspire me, to tell me all of the stories that could possibly be written. But that is a debt that could not be repaid, and all of the glories that I could earn would be empty.

She’s beckoning me, with those eyes, calling to me, asking me to join her. Our stories must intersect. All stories must intersect at some point.

This is New Orleans, where all is joined together.