A Dream of Scott Keating

Kaivoksela, Finland

I wish I could “forward” a dream in the same way that an email is forwarded. I’d send it to my poker friends , the central figure of which was Scott Keating until he died some years ago. Maybe to one or two others, Ernesto, Carol, who cared for him much those last days.

Scott Keating and his truck. Denver, 1975

Despite the light, many dreams here in Finland have been dark, disturbing, of a kind that leaves me uneasy on awakening, so much so that I wouldn’t tell Nancy their content because they are so unsettling, nasty even.

But not last night, or this morning just before waking.

I dreamt about Scott Keating.

He was in some kind of rehabilitation center, sitting in a chair outside the facility on a sunny, warm day. The chair was large enough to hold his 500-600 pound frame. Several other people were there talking to him in a relaxed way when I happened along.

After a short time I noticed that Scott’s clothes appeared baggy-fitting on him as if he’d lost weight. I looked more closely. Yes! not only had he lost weight but he’d lost a great deal of weight, so much so that I could hardly recognize his face without doing a double take.

And then this  `new Scott’, the new man, got up by himself, not without some difficulty and started to walk. Scott could walk again! I was excited, deeply happy like I hadn’t been for a long time. And as he rose from his chair he’d changed in another way. Not only was he much thinner, but he was also smaller in size. Where in `real life’ he’d been on the tall side and obese, now he was short and thin, a small midget.

But he could walk!

This he did with difficulty and after a few painful steps, what I feared would happen, did happen. He fell. Thinking he was the old obese Scott and remembering that it had once taken 9 firemen called from the Edgewater Fire Department an hour to lift him from the floor of his last apartment, I thought, on no, there aren’t enough of us to help him off the ground. But my fears were unfounded as by himself he got up off of the ground, no assistance needed.

And as he did, I said to myself, I must be dreaming, but regardless I’m happy. And it was a dream and at that moment I awoke.