I feel someone nudge me awake. It’s the old medicine woman who lived in the AZ desert when I was a child. She beckons me to follow her. As I get up from the bed, I realize I can’t touch the floor with my feet. I’m a boy again. I follow her to a camp fire in the desert and she points to a spot where I should sit near the fire. She disappears into the darkness and reappears with a large leather bag. She sits opposite of me and I see the reflection of the flames dance in her eyes and her face seems to glow from the camp fire. She smiles and tells me to look into the fire. From the leather bag, she brings out what looks like grains of sand and throws some into the fire. The fire reacts with bursts of energy, like miniature fireworks. She then throws what looks like leaves into the fire and the burning leaves put out an aroma like incense in a church. She tells me to look into the fire and see. I look into the fire and see what seem like faces that form and reform. I see animals too. I am not afraid. What I see amuses me because they are like cartoon figures emerging from the fire. She laughs with approval as I start to laugh at the various cartoon like images. I am not afraid. I am a boy.

I wake up laughing.