On Waking Up

In a desert with peach-colored sand, I am riding a camel with a silk hump and red tassels for feet. I am heading to Antartica, I am told by the sheik who is galloping on a giant ostrich beside me, "so that we will marry and seal our love in all that ice."

I am in the middle of a dream, wading through the mist of this nocturnal phantasm, when my cellphone rings. My ringtone, Outkast's "Hey Ya", is so loud that it clears away the mist, jolting me out of bed. I answer - it's a friend, and she sounds like she's choking. She asks me to call her house, which I do, to find out that yes, she's choking, not because she's in pain, but because she's giddy, absolutely giddy, happy beyond belief. "I found someone," she gasps, the ecstasy in her voice palpable, "he found me."