A dream from the other night. 

I was sleeping outside in a sleeping bag near my father—who never camped a day in his life—but we weren't out in the wilderness. We were by the side of a house and the house was by the sea, and I had a moment thinking, as if COVID-related, “Oh man, this is great being outside in the fresh air.” But then worries. We were outside. Animals were outside. There were birds circling above us, but now I was on a big mattress, and I was with my wife, Patricia, and my cat, Jellybean. Basically it was my real-life sleeping situation transplanted into the dreamworld, and I was thinking, “Well, at least Jellybean will keep the birds away.” But then I worried again: What if one of the birds is like a hawk? Could Jellybean take on a hawk? Just then this big bird swooped in front of Jellybean and flapped its wings in midair. Jellybean sniffed at it but I was l like, “Get away from her!” to the bird, but the bird wouldn't go away. “I need a baseball bat,” I thought, and suddenly there was one, on a shelf in this shed by the house, and I grabbed it and was ready to strike ... when the bird just laid down on the road. We were no longer by the side of the house but further along. “Does it want to die?” I asked Patricia. “I've heard about things like this,” she said, nodding. “End of life rituals.” And so I took the baseball bat and struck at its neck and severed its head. Now we needed to clean it up, and just like that there was a trash bag by the side of the road. But now the body was big and plump, and its feet were like the feet of Big Bird on “Sesame Street,” so we really had to cut it into thirds to make it fit. I managed to do it with the bat and with a minimum of blood—just a splotch on the road. Patricia held the garbage bag open for me, and then we argued about the best way to get the dead bird into the bag. 

My favorite part is Big Bird's feet. Also how I wanted a thing and it was suddenly there for me. Wished that happened in more dreams. Or, you know, in life.