A Strange Dream

That night I dreamed of a lion with a mechanical eye.  He told me that in Paris I would find my quest.  He showed me a city street lined with shops.  Colorful shops with warm light spilling from their windows.  But the street was cold and I started to shiver.

He then told me to put my face in his mane and count to ten.  I did this, and when I looked up we stood in a forest in front of a little cottage.  Snow was falling all around us, but inside the cottage a woman was sitting at a bench, her back turned, tinkering with a small metal object.  Beside her was a fireplace, and next to that, a little boy.

A light in the attic turned on, and I could see a man sitting in front of the window, typing on a machine.  It was The Professor working on a book.  I wondered why he and Esme weren't at his home, and who the little boy was.  I looked more closely at the child, and suddenly I knew.  Though in life I had no children, in the dream I recognized the boy as mine.

I looked again at the woman, thinking, "please let her be me, please, please make her me!"  Then she began to turn around, and I woke up.