thrice great hermes
#67
by stanley lieber
the lions came.
standing at the sink and staring out of the kitchen window he saw them for the first time. lions, cresting the ridge, walking slowly out of the woods. converging on his home as if there were some reason lions should exist in 21st century indiana. in winter.
male and female created he them. étienne blinked and sipped his coffee.
later, as he climbed into the truck, they glanced at him with evident disinterest (cats) and he wondered to himself if this was just going to be the way things were, from now on. more of them continued to show up as the morning wore on, but they didn’t seem to have any particular reason for being there. étienne could remember the portraits of the big cats his father had hung throughout the house: panthers, tigers, cougars, cheetahs, and lions. could there be some kind of connection? of course, the framed drawings from his childhood living room could hardly have lured these cats into the woods.
the lions didn’t cause any trouble, but still he was careful. he locked his doors and drove to work.
when he returned home they were all still there, most of them asleep. okay, so this was how it was going to be. what would violet think? one of the males perked up momentarily when étienne slammed the door of his truck, then rested his chin on his forepaws and drifted back to sleep. étienne was more careful with the back door of the house.
in the morning they were gone. well, absent. not apparently visible. he assumed they might return at any moment. they could always come back. he was curious to know: what had they wanted, and what had they been trying to tell him?
LIONS IN DREAMS: Understanding dreams is not so difficult. In
practice dream symbols translate into certain words within the
English language. For instance one lion dream translated into
the words "feeling nervous" and the dream meaning was linked
to the feeling "I am very nervous about being caught breaking
copyright rules". So dream meanings are in fact very relevant
yet they seem so bizarre.
