this old man once got by/on an average of four hours of sleep per night/but now it is as if he is repaying an insomnia loan/and longer sleeps make for more vivid dreams

two nights ago he and his brothers were on a bus

(one brother in real life had passed on six years ago)

the bus dropped them off at a hotel near a ski resort in colorado/at which they intended to ski/and the deceased brother said/”i’m gonna look around”/and left the lobby/and the other brother was elsewhere as well

the clerk lady had a file on the dreamer/including the laminate from his high school i.d. card/with a faint image of his babyish younger self/and the clerk grinned and said “that’ll be a flat five dollars”/and the dreamer drew a crumpled fiver from his jeans/and pressed it between his hand and the lobby desk/and rubbed until it was as flat as he could get it

the little bell on the front door jingled/and a woman he did not recognize walked in/with a classmate and crony from long ago/and now the dreamer recognized the woman

she’d had some work done/smooth forehead/collagenned and dermabraded face/and buttressed breasts/but forty years ago she’d played him and dumped him/did the same to the classmate too/and now classmate and old flame/were making another go of it

she was flirty with the dreamer but he would have none of it/strode out the door and onto the brittle ice-encrusted snow/leaving stomp-prints in his wake

somehow he was on the roof/finding it vital to crawl lest he slide and fall/down and off the steep-pitched edge

a skier landed near him from above/grinned and “hiya”ed and pivoted/and launched herself off/and the dreamer was sure he knew her/but couldn’t give her a name

somehow he was on the ski lift/and a peruvian young woman was chatting him up/explaining that she loved to ski year round/and half a year hence she’d be back in peru/and here came the dismount point/and she said “chase me”/heading for a black-diamond trail

“no way” thought the dreamer/and slid toward a blue trail/on a burton board he was using for the first time/but it was just like a skateboard/and he deftly threaded through dozens of hesitant newbies/picking up speed/getting cocky/but here came an unavoidable TREE*#*#*

the dreamer gasped awake

uninjured/intensely relieved

and hobbled to the blindingly-lit bathroom/to complete his relief