One after the other, oldest to youngest, my three brothers and I each had the same dream.  For me it came in the middle of the night’s dreaming: not the first dream, but one long before waking.

In the dream, we’re all at a big family feast at my grandparents’ old house: the one that burned in the fire. Except my grandparents aren’t there. It’s just we four brothers and our dead parents and we all sit down to a big feast. Only there’s no food. Nobody’s cooked anything, and in fact no one’s bothered to buy anything. There’s nothing in the refrigerator or any of the cupboards. Our parents are annoyed but we think it’s funny and each of us–depending on whose dream it is–volunteers to go get a turkey from the store. In my dream, I volunteer.

We decide to walk–for whatever reason. Outside, there’s a long road rising and slipping and rising and slipping through these gentle hills no sharper than turtle shells, and everything’s blue in the moonlight. It’s unfamiliar yet familiar, as things are in dreams, and we don’t think anything of it.

There’s sharp thicket on either side of the road and the road is so narrow that the thorns tear at our pant legs and, after walking for a while, they begin to tear at our legs. The road goes on much longer than we thought and we realize we’re getting quite hungry and that everyone at home must be wondering what’s taking so long. So we walk faster and now the thorns are really starting to hurt our legs. At last, we crest a final hill and see the grocery store sprawled on the other side. All the lights are on, glowing white, but flickering slightly, like the eyes of a jack-o-lantern, and the parking lot is empty.