Willy got the paperwork via a special shuttle from Earth to Mars. The large envelop was marked urgent in large red-lettering.

“Recalled?” he said, “I jus’ got here. And what about the new porters job I was promised at the hotel/casino?”

The person delivering the folio, shrugged and turned away.

Slowly, Willy read through the documents, looking for an explanation. There it was on, the third page, second paragraph, fourth sentence.

“There are domesticated dogs being unlawfully-housed and fed by the citizen’s of the Moon.”

Willy sighed, “Once a dog-catcher, always a dog-catcher. Where’s Bob Barker when you need him?”

Saying that you support ‘freedom of speech,’ but not ‘hate speech,’ is like claiming you support ‘physics,’ but not ‘gravity.’

The dream is: while with a group of people, we were invited to search through a home for items we believed to be valuable. Since I was in the military, I was assigned to look for anything that was related to uniform service.

As I did this I found myself being followed and then chased by two men. I ducked into a dark room and hid behind a twin bed.

As I saw the shadows of the men enter the room, I crawled around the bed, then decided to slide under it and hide. When I did, I discovered the bed covered a rectangular bottomless pit and I fell into it.

The reality is: I fell out of bed, bruising my right hip, bashing my right ankle bone, jarring my already bad back, banging my head against the dresser as I slipped between the bed stead and it, and injuring my right wrist. This woke my wife, who jumped from bed in a frightened panic that I’d seriously hurt myself, and caused the dogs to woof and investigate me as I sat up.

Once gathered and back in bed, I realized I couldn’t move my wrist. It took a bit of manipulation, but I finally popped the ulna back into place and then allowed myself to drift back to sleep.

The outcome is: as I started back into that place where dreams and reality mix for the briefest of moments, I understood that I am a better story-writer than a story-teller. Enjoy the fall.

The magic of a snow day for kids in school is lost now that there’s distance-learning.

Unless there’s an act of God or an implosive scandal within his administration, Nevada’s Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak will be re-elected to a second term. And since he won’t be on the ballot until 2022, it all come’s down to time and seats.

Senate terms are four years, but every two years, half are up for election (and not all senate seats will all be up for election at once.) The state has 21 state senators and right now there are 13 Democrats and 8 Republicans in the state senate, putting Republicans in the minority.

The Nevada State Assembly has 42 seats, which are on the ballot every two years. Currently, Republicans only hold 14 seats making them the minority here as well.

There isn’t time enough between now and 2022 for Republicans to change the balance of seats in both the Senate and Assembly. Further, the geopolitics of those leaving California and Oregon for Nevada is turning the state a deeper shade of blue, with Mineral and Douglas counties becoming dominantly Democratic, joining Clark and Washoe.

In bed, I open the news app on my cellphone. I tap 2 News KTVN.

“The Nevada Highway Patrol says crews responded to a head on crash on Pyramid Highway at Los Altos Parkway on Friday afternoon. Officials said there were substantial injuries.”

The third in as many months.

My mind slips into a memory. A bluegrass/gospel song by Dorsey Dixon, written in 1937. The title escapes me.

“Who did you say it was brother?
Who was it fell by the way?
When whiskey and blood run together
Did you hear anyone pray?

I didn’t hear nobody pray, dear brother
I didn’t hear nobody pray
I heard the crash on the highway
But, I didn’t hear nobody pray.”

Not booze, but the specter of texting.

Morning time, I’m on Pyramid, nearing Los Altos.

A small car pulls into the northbound path of a fast-moving semi-truck. The semi’s driver brakes hard, crossing over into the ‘suicide lane’ towards me. Best as I can, I hug the broken white line to the right, unable to move over any further because of the two vehicle’s holding their places in the far lane. The semi clips the left side of my smaller truck.

I jump awake at the sound of the ensuing crash.

Nineteen-and-eighty-six, earning only $5.15 an hour, residing in poverty, loving every moment. A bag of Ruffle potato chips, 8 pieces of chicken, 6 cans of cherry Coca-Cola, three dollars and ninety-nine cents per day, living like Kings and Queens.

The sweet life at twenty-six years, sun in our faces, wind through our hair, searching for that next big thing, the coming fad. Blessed ignorance.

The poverty line, like our waistlines, has moved since those days. That bag of chips now $5.29, more air than chip, more than we were making per hour, back when we had more hair, and less worry about skin cancer.

Woke up after my wife. She’s out on her early morning walk.

“Hell, the sun isn’t even up.”

Rolling from bed, I go to the kitchen, make some coffee. As the percolator gasps, wheezes, gurgles and chugs, I thumb through my cellphone at the various news stories.

Corona virus, face masks, riots, anti-Trump, left, right, hatred. Stories I can’t believe, one-way or the other.

The Reno Gazette Journal has the headline, “Nevada Search for Missing New Zealand Para-glider Suspended.” Someone must have thought they were being pretty cute, ‘para-glider suspended.’

James ‘Kiwi’ Johnston vanished August 20. Has it been that long since I’ve checked the local news?

Reading on, it says he posted to Facebook, “Dressing for 18-thousand feet in 100 degrees in Nevadastan.” It’s a place I know all too well.

It’s where many US troops are taken to train for desert warfare because it has features and terrain, similar to Afghanistan. I know both very well.

Johnston and a couple of mates took off in their para-gliders, heading to Wendover from the Shoshone Mountains. His GPS stopped sending signals about 250 miles east of Reno.

“That’s some bad land to be lost in.”

Standing on my front porch, coffee in hand, I watch my wife coming up the driveway. She smiles, goes inside, I follow.

“I need to read the local headlines a little more often.”

Tap called in the morning, “Pete’s dead.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Best damned guard dog I’ve ever had.”

“But,” I started to interrupt him.

Pete and I met about five-years before. He’d chased me around my truck, forcing me to retreat inside it until Tap called him off.

“Knock it off, Pete.”

The beast backed away, keeping an eye on me even as Tap came to escort me to safety.

“Guess he doesn’t like me very much,” I said.

“He don’t like anyone,” Tap said.

Eventually, Pete came to accept me, maybe even trust me, allowing me to pet him on his head and back and play with his tail.

Sadness was evident in Tap’s voice, “Found him in his bed, curled up like he was asleep.”

“I’m very sorry, Tap.”

“Be honest with me,” Tap asked, “Is it normal to be sad at the death of a peacock?”

“Yeah, I think it is,” I answered.

A shout out to everyone who can remember their childhood phone number — but not the computer password that they created yesterday.