Joel Holub

The other night my father dosed off as he sat watching television. He was sitting where he always sits, watching a television that stands in the same place all his televisions have stood. The TV’s have changed, and the sofas have changed. But the positions have remained the same for over fifty years.

It frustrates him that he now regularly falls asleep before the last ten minutes of a show, or, to be exact, ten minutes before 11pm, at the end of primetime broadcasting.  Although it has become common for him to doze off, he had never recalled dreaming, except on this occasion.

In his dream, he is sitting watching TV. A tremendously loud thunderclap shakes the house. The TV screen turns to white noise. Then, lights flicker and the house goes dark. He knows my brother is upstairs. He calls out to my brother, telling him to get out the candles.

He is aware that he is dying. He tries to tell my brother that he needs to come and say goodbye, but his voice is fading.  Suddenly, he is outside his body looking down over himself sitting on the sofa.

He then woke up.

Turning the TV off, he went up to his bedroom very shaken by the dream. That night, he slept poorly.

In the morning before breakfast, he found a large dead bird on the kitchen floor. One of the cats must have brought it in. He thinks it was a mocking bird.

In the living room where he had the dream the night before, he observed the clock on the VCR blinking. This meant there had been a power outage sometime during the night. When he looked at the other clocks around the house the time was correct. Only the TV had been affected.

Later that morning just before noon, my father received a phone call. It was a woman he did not know. In a friendly voice she asked him if he would be interested in purchasing a plot in the cemetery she represented. He told her he was not interested because he desires to be cremated and have his ashes scattered.

The dream stays with him for many days.