February 29, 2000  □  Austin, Texas

Originally entitled Dead Husbands

This dream is about death, but it is not a tragedy. It starts off seriously enough, with a visit from Eric, my dead husband. Eric is furious and unreachable. He is barricaded behind his anger. He came, not to talk, but to give me an important phone number. He is dying, and his appearance is grotesque. Had he presented himself more sympathetically, he would have seemed pitiable instead. In any case, one leg suffers from elephantiasis; the other is bone thin. He has trouble walking, even standing, and he reclines on my couch without interrupting his tirade.

The problem, it seems, is that my house is a mess, and even worse, I cannot immediately come up with a pencil for him. Matters are not made easier by the fact that the path to my desk is blocked by a bush growing out of control—for weeks I have been meaning to trim it back but never got around to it.

Two neighbors are visiting, and while they frantically search through their purses to help me out, I try to thrust myself under or through the prickly bush to my desk. It’s a tense and noisy scene.

Eventually I find a pen, I think, and a small scrap of paper. Eric writes the number and, limping painfully, takes his leave without another word. I know I will never see him again, and regret that I didn’t manage—I didn’t even try—to tell him how much I love him.

One of the neighbors is here to find out whether I have yet mailed the coffin that she had left me some time ago for that purpose. Again, I had put it off, what with one thing and another, and so I propose that we take it to the post office on the spot. Inside the coffin is the dead husband of this neighbor. His face is visible through a window on the top. Such a window is needed to comply with the postal regulation that the contents of a large package be visible to inspection. They’d want to be sure the coffin really contains a body, not contraband of some sort.

The three of us lift the heavy box and go out into the bright air. We parade through the streets with the coffin on our shoulders. It is a lovely day in our village, which looks more beautiful than ever. I remember moving here and wondering whether I would like it better than my last village, which was pretty too, but had no shops. This one has shops, and a post office; they are as charming as the rest of the town.

On the way we pass two adjoining houses where two brides are preparing for a double wedding, even though it is Tuesday morning. Each of them stands in her wedding dress at the top of her front stairs, communicating with the other by means of a messenger who rushes up and down the stairs, shouting to each one in turn, although they’re in easy calling distance of one another. One of the brides is pregnant. I am left wondering about the strangeness—of marrying on a Tuesday.

We reach the Post Office. The clerk refuses to accept the coffin for mailing, offering one excuse after another. The first is that they can’t take the responsibility, in case some harm should come to the body. The widow insists that she doesn’t care what happens to the body: “For heaven’s sake,” she says, “he’s dead already.”

The next excuse is that the sight of the face through the window is too upsetting for the postal workers, who tend to be a little bit jumpy. It’s a catch-22: the window is the problem, but it’s required by regulations. I suggest that the body be wrapped, like a mummy, so only the bandaged head would show through the window.

“A mummy!” the clerk exclaims in horror. “That’s even more gruesome than a face.”

Ever logical, I endeavor to establish that the size and weight of the coffin isn’t an issue. They admit that they accept other big, heavy packages. But the direction of my questioning suggests a new objection: The shape of the box is impossible! How could we expect them to transport something so long and narrow? (The coffin is not rectangular, but is tapered like a proper mummy case.) The officials—there are now three of them—agree that the lower part could easily break off, and they would be forced to deliver a damaged package.

This is a poser—how to answer it? I offer to pump liquid acrylic into the cavity. When it hardens, it would stabilize the body and solidify the box. Nothing could ever damage either one!

Just then a man interrupts. He calls himself a Problem-Solver and a Person with Clout. He can, he says, represent us in our dealings with the government. I am excited: “Then you can get the Post Office to accept this package?”

“No,” he says. “I prefer to look at the big picture.”

He offers to propose legislation to create a new branch of government, the Bureau of Common Sense. He believes it might take several years, and he asks us to be patient.