Spider Lake Read Online Free
Ben. He asked slowly and deliberately: “Is the monkey in the dream?”
“Yes doctor, the monkey is in the dream.”
The doctor had a slight Mona Lisa smile on his face. His entire demeanor had changed since the mention of the monkey. He tried not to show it, but it was there in plain sight for Ben to see. “Tell me what you remember in the dream.”
Ben knew that he had the shrink’s rapt attention, and he began telling the dream as best as he could. He began,
“In my dream I am in a tourist town of some sort. It seems as if the town is in a hilly area. There are very expensive and very old mansions lining the boulevard on both sides. I am in a small line waiting for a tour bus to pick us up. While standing in the line, I notice to my left down the street where it ends, on a cross street, a man riding a very large, beautiful black horse. He is only in my vision briefly while riding past the intersection. I was thinking what a beautiful horse it was, when, in my peripheral vision on my right, I see a young woman in full riding regalia, galloping from my right to my left on a smaller, yet equally beautiful white horse. She is riding towards the intersection where the other rider was, and turning left at the intersection, she follows the other rider.
The other tourists and I are talking about the woman on the white horse, and I am telling them about the other rider on the much larger black horse, which none of them had seen, and the conversation turns to how the wealthy two riders must have been meeting for a fox hunt or something. We all climb on the bus, which is open air, and we head down the street and to the left in the same direction as the two riders.
As we are crossing a bridge over a narrow river with fast moving water, the driver loses control of the bus. We go flying through the air, and the bus crashes through the roof of another beautiful home along-side a river just below the bridge. There is a small, white-haired lady having tea in the room where we end up, and she looks pretty startled, but continues to sip her tea.
All of the tourists climb out of the badly damaged bus and out of the ruined house and proceed to the next-door neighbors for a cocktail party. We are all in the living room or den being served soft drinks ( and hard drinks ) and everyone is chatting about the ordeal of the bus accident. I notice that nobody is injured, and I say to the others; “Don’t any of you realize that we all walked away without a scratch? Did any one of you even hit the seat in front of you?”
Then a very frail old man who presumably lived in the house, perhaps the relative of one of the hosts, walks slowly up to me. He has tears in his eyes and he proceeds to hug me. I can feel his ribs as he embraces me. I can smell a mixture of his aged body and some old after-shave. I don’t know what to do, or why he is hugging me, so I kind of hug him back gently, and tell him it is alright. All the other party-goers are touched by this and I can see some of them getting emotional. I realize when we finish the embrace that he is the organ-grinder which died and left the monkey at our resort on Spider Lake in Wisconsin.
Doctor Levine interrupted, “Ben, did you say organ-grinder?”
“Yes doctor. Well, he really wasn’t an organ-grinder when we knew him. He may have started out as one. I think when we met him he was doing the carnival circuit.”
Doctor Levine was relishing his patient’s story as well as the dream. He was furiously writing in his note pad. He wished he could whistle, but he knew he must suppress his joy at such rich material. Once in a great while you get something much more interesting than the garden variety bad marriage, bed-wetter, or brooding teenager and this patient had some real promise. “Go on with your dream Ben.”
Ben continued:
“Where was I? Oh yeah. After the dinner party I am suddenly a kid again back in northern Wisconsin in one of our yellow rental boats on Spider
“Yes doctor, the monkey is in the dream.”
The doctor had a slight Mona Lisa smile on his face. His entire demeanor had changed since the mention of the monkey. He tried not to show it, but it was there in plain sight for Ben to see. “Tell me what you remember in the dream.”
Ben knew that he had the shrink’s rapt attention, and he began telling the dream as best as he could. He began,
“In my dream I am in a tourist town of some sort. It seems as if the town is in a hilly area. There are very expensive and very old mansions lining the boulevard on both sides. I am in a small line waiting for a tour bus to pick us up. While standing in the line, I notice to my left down the street where it ends, on a cross street, a man riding a very large, beautiful black horse. He is only in my vision briefly while riding past the intersection. I was thinking what a beautiful horse it was, when, in my peripheral vision on my right, I see a young woman in full riding regalia, galloping from my right to my left on a smaller, yet equally beautiful white horse. She is riding towards the intersection where the other rider was, and turning left at the intersection, she follows the other rider.
The other tourists and I are talking about the woman on the white horse, and I am telling them about the other rider on the much larger black horse, which none of them had seen, and the conversation turns to how the wealthy two riders must have been meeting for a fox hunt or something. We all climb on the bus, which is open air, and we head down the street and to the left in the same direction as the two riders.
As we are crossing a bridge over a narrow river with fast moving water, the driver loses control of the bus. We go flying through the air, and the bus crashes through the roof of another beautiful home along-side a river just below the bridge. There is a small, white-haired lady having tea in the room where we end up, and she looks pretty startled, but continues to sip her tea.
All of the tourists climb out of the badly damaged bus and out of the ruined house and proceed to the next-door neighbors for a cocktail party. We are all in the living room or den being served soft drinks ( and hard drinks ) and everyone is chatting about the ordeal of the bus accident. I notice that nobody is injured, and I say to the others; “Don’t any of you realize that we all walked away without a scratch? Did any one of you even hit the seat in front of you?”
Then a very frail old man who presumably lived in the house, perhaps the relative of one of the hosts, walks slowly up to me. He has tears in his eyes and he proceeds to hug me. I can feel his ribs as he embraces me. I can smell a mixture of his aged body and some old after-shave. I don’t know what to do, or why he is hugging me, so I kind of hug him back gently, and tell him it is alright. All the other party-goers are touched by this and I can see some of them getting emotional. I realize when we finish the embrace that he is the organ-grinder which died and left the monkey at our resort on Spider Lake in Wisconsin.
Doctor Levine interrupted, “Ben, did you say organ-grinder?”
“Yes doctor. Well, he really wasn’t an organ-grinder when we knew him. He may have started out as one. I think when we met him he was doing the carnival circuit.”
Doctor Levine was relishing his patient’s story as well as the dream. He was furiously writing in his note pad. He wished he could whistle, but he knew he must suppress his joy at such rich material. Once in a great while you get something much more interesting than the garden variety bad marriage, bed-wetter, or brooding teenager and this patient had some real promise. “Go on with your dream Ben.”
Ben continued:
“Where was I? Oh yeah. After the dinner party I am suddenly a kid again back in northern Wisconsin in one of our yellow rental boats on Spider
Readers choose
Maya Love
John T. Phillifent
Bill Gaston
James P. Blaylock
Vincent Heck
Arthur Hailey
Thomas Keneally
Tracy Krauss
Alice Munro