93. Dreams

Just a casting thought re Agnes 
were I to write a play.

So, I dreamed last night that Agnes ran off with Sally. I could not shake the dream from my mind when I awoke in the morning and I still cannot forget it.  Maybe Sally is a famous Broadway actress who disguised herself as my angel for one afternoon!  And for fun she sells real estate!  When I resisted her, she returned a few years later and instead seduced Agnes, a distant second to me. Like Thespis, I’ll bet Sally is launching our former abbot on a career of stage and screen. He’s probably down there in The City applying grease paint as we speak.

“Raiser,” I said to my Brother after supper in the evening, “you’re a thespian, right?”

“No,” he said, “but we always wondered if my sister was.”

“If you wanted even a minor role on Broadway, would it be very hard to get?” I asked.

“You mean a ‘spear carrier’?” he said. “A lot tougher than you might think.”

“How long would it take Agnes to qualify for a role like that?” I said.

“Agnes? With his attitude, forever,” said Raiser.

“Suppose he knew someone who was really important in the Theater?”

“Oh, in that case,” said Raiser, “he’d be on stage the next afternoon in a matinee.”

“I’ll bet Agnes has succumbed to the theater.” I said. “Someday we’ll see him on stage, in the movies and on television.”

“All we ever see up here is trees,” said Raiser.

“A true consolation,” I replied.

But it isn’t Agnes who is on my mind lately. It’s Sally. She keeps returning in my thoughts.  And sometimes my dreams.  But not in the flesh.  She hasn’t returned to our monastery.  And I haven’t seen Sally since I went with Agnes to the real estate office to sign the papers.