Subject: Ligers and Latches and Hair -- Oh My

8/17/1999

Mark,

I had a lion dream again last night -- for a couple hours.  Woke up shaken
at one point enough to confirm what state (Alabama) I was in, what bed, who
was next to me and where the exits were -- fell back to sleep and straight
into the dream again.

Started in a 2 1/2 story suburban house with lions and a couple ligers that
had been neglected and had gotten free from one of those nearby highway
attraction zoos with the loud billboards.  They weren't very aggressive at
first, just kind of insistent about coming in;  we retreated to the kitchen
-- we had no guns and were afraid knives and clubs would just make the big
cats shred us that much more quickly.  It crossed our minds that that might
be as good a strategy as any -- get it over with quick.  Fleeing the house
meant going outside where several lions were roaming the neighborhood -- the
anticipation out there would be debilitating.  So far we had only confirmed
that 2 of the king felines had entered the house: a young roughed up female
lion and a half grown male liger. 

There didn't seem to be any rooms on the main level of the house that had
doors with latches that might keep a lion out.  The kitchen to dining room
portal had a swinging door -- we eventually braved going through it to make
our way to the stairs -- the cats must be investigating the family room and
would come around to the kitchen that way.

Upstairs it was your parents house, Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell.  I remember being
annoyed at them for not having better door knobs -- in the dream they were
some kind of black iron skeleton key thing with the latch part about 1/4
inch long and the metal surrounding the hole in the door jambs were all
bent.  I could push my way in without turning the knob or breaking the door.
A 300 pound liger would walk through like it wasn't there.  Maybe they
wouldn't like the stairs.  Wrong.

We went out the window onto the roof but quickly went into another bedroom
-- I've seen the movie "The Ghost and the Darkness", (I didn't sleep well
for days, much scarier than "Jaws").  This room had a piano and we tried to
prop the door closed with it -- but if 2 of us could move the piano then so
could a lion.  

Here came the female -- at least it was the smaller beast.  Presumably the
Liger was already chewing on someone's innards in another room.  I found a
pair of fingernail scissors, the curved, pointy little ones about 2 1/2
inches long.  The lioness pushed the door a little in a bemused kind of way
then stuck one large paw in the crack she'd opened up.  I tried to stab the
back of this paw, hoping the lion would look for prey that didn't bite back,
but I couldn't see what I was doing having to look through Madelyn's hanging
hair as she tried to hold the door closed.  The lioness flicked her claws
and lacerated my hand as I continued to try to stab her.  I think I passed
out at about this point in a kaleidoscope of failed defenses and a smiling,
half cartoon (think Lion King) lioness climbing over some debris we'd piled
on top of the clanging piano.