I dreamed last night that Ex was still alive. We were divorced, and he was still alive. Ex had wanted to plan a Fairy Party in a trendy store in a nearby half-trendy town. I agreed to help Ex get more information, just like I always used to do. I drove to the trendy store with a female acquaintance.
We got there, and I saw a Korean friend from high school there sitting on the green, carpeted stairs that patrons sat on to watch live music the store held at night. He hugged me on the stairs and asked how I was. “Fine,” I said, as tears came to my eyes. “Nope, not fine, but I will be,” I told him. (Ex had gone back to being dead at this point of the dream.)
After the live music played, I got up and tried to find who I believed to be the store owner. I found her, her other manager and the band upstairs at some tables with suggestion of coke use on them. (Having never witnessed coke use, it always appears as white dust in my dreams.) I didn’t want to disturb the owner, so I decided to meander about the store in wait.
When the owner and band rose from their break, they all flitted about like the butterfly scene in Alice of Wonderland when she has to catch the one with the key to get her through the next door. It was mayhem. Children ran around in the fuscia, carpeted lower level. The adults travelled all three levels in various levels of excitement. During this time and the height of my frustration, Ex’s headless, alive self showed up from the kids’ lower level.
I finally found the owner again at a podium under the stairs on the lower level. I spoke to her, wrote my information down, and left with a brochure about the cost of parties at the store. I met up with the friend who had driven over with me and got in her big, dark Suburban. As we drove to our next destination, I let Ex know by cell phone that I had gotten the information that he had wanted for the Fairy Party.
He must have taken the contact as encouragement that our romantic relationship had not ended because he started sending me suggestive texts and photos, just like he had done in real life after we split. The first message showed a photo of a shampoo bottle and a message about us showering together. The next photo showed a stack of pastel, handmade soap blocks, then a stack of soaps on him. The last photo showed him sitting nude in an “L” position with soaps stacked on his abdomen. ‘Who took that shot?’ I thought. I showed them to my friend in disbelief at his repeated efforts to get me back in his sheets.
We got out of the car and headed down Main Street. I realized that Ex had faked his own death. He had been alive the whole time! We had held a memorial service and everything, and for what?!? Seething, I walked with purpose on the concrete sidewalk in a pair of stacked-heel, black leather boots. I was gonna kick his ass! Instead, some young chump came up behind me and tried to mug me or something. I double-kicked him Mortal Kombat-style. He retreated to a porch. “That wasn’t worth ten cents,” he said.
I woke up from this dream confused about reality. It took a few minutes of asking myself if any of it had been true. Was Ex alive? Did Little Guy still have a dad? Had he really faked his own death?
The memory of seeing Ex lying lifeless in the snow drifted through my mind. No, none of my dream had been true, and I felt a little disappointed. I know that Ex is gone forever from this planet. I sometimes find myself half-wishing he was still here.
