Tall Order

Last night, as Martin slept, he dreamt that he was a waiter in a diner. His sole customer, a woman and a novelist he had never seen before, slightly older than he, demanded pancakes. When he brought her the plate she snapped, "I wanted burned pancakes."

"They are burned," he said, lifting one to check.

"I wanted them burned on both sides," she said, and waved him away.

Poor Martin took the plate back to the kitchen and explained the order to the cook, who grumpily threw them back on the skillet and began burning the other side.

"I want eggs, too!" Martin turned around and found that the woman novelist had followed him into the kitchen. She fixed him with her beady eye and specified: "A cooked egg within an egg."

This morning we were eating a much less complicated breakfast--Cheerios and muesli--when Martin recounted his dream. I, chief dream interpreter and magician of the Cockroft household, spun this explanation: the woman, who is unrecognizable except as a figment of Martin's imagination, is Martin's creative spirit, or Muse. She's a pushy spirit, asking Martin for things he must go to great lengths to provide, even the impossible and enigmatic Egg Within an Egg.

He performs drudge work and even still he is unable to please his Muse, whom he both wants to please and feels bitter toward.

Why? Because these days, we have no time or energy for creative writing. None. Neither of us have written a poem or story in months. We've been writing of course--Martin sketches syllabi and lesson plans and I've been writing for the paper, and both are important and rewarding in their own right. But we both feel utterly divorced from our creative writing, and the muses are getting grumpy.

Martin felt this when he arrived home yesterday evening and groaned, "I'm so tired. I feel absolutely drained." On closer inspection of his day, we realized he hadn't eaten breakfast nor lunch--an involuntary fast due to a hectic, packed day.

And here I am now, typing away when I should be working on a story for a magazine or at least catching up with our Everests of laundry. But I need to toss my hungry Muse a little scrap now and then to keep her from devouring me. . .though I don't know whether I'll ever be able to fulfill Martin's tall order. That's up to him and his spirit to settle.