Sweet Premonition

by  Shaun Lawton  

   Yesterday while at work I went into this rhetorical rhapsody, when I expressed to a couple of coworkers, how nice it would to be a multi-millionaire or billionaire, which brought about my rumination over the classic question, would you rather be rich & miserable or poor & happy, to which I quickly added, my dream is to be rich & happy, and isn't it true they say if you go after your dream with enough diligence, it will come true?  

    I then went on to explain how I could cash out one million dollars in bundled $100 bills, stuff 'em in a gym bag just like in the movies, and then go around handing out wads of cash to people.  If  I were to divide one million between eighteen transporters on my team, they'd each receive $55,555.55.   I could do this every year, cash out a cool million, and focus on a different group of people.  I'd start with my family, of course, then each year work outwards to friends, coworkers, and by the third or fourth year, going out in the street, until I described how fun it would be to get up on top of the roof of a city building and just let the hundred dollar bills scatter on the wind, down into the street below. 

   Was this a premonition of the movie my wife & I then watched on NETFLIX that very night?  The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, a short 45 min film directed by Wes Anderson and starring Benedict Cumberbatch based on a tale by Roald Dahl.  There's a scene in the film where Henry Sugar, the titular hero of the story, does exactly what I vividly described earlier in the day.  He begins throwing money off his porch down to the street below, causing a bit of a ruckus while people scream and shove to grab the cash with their hands.  

   My dream has always been to be happy.  I've dreamed of being a famous author, poet, even movie director before in my life.  Mostly I've dreamed of remaining an A-class poet.  I don't know if deep inside me something recognizes that if you dream of more than one thing (for example, "being happy and rich"), that you might be asking for too much.  

   Of course my ultimate realization is that I am already rich.  I own a house, have a beautiful wife and son, have been working happily and successfully as a supervisor in the radiology department of a major hospital for the past sixteen years.  I don't earn a salary, but rather get paid a decent hourly wage, which on occasion I get paid overtime when covering extra shifts as needed.  My online networking with social media has been going strong for bordering on twenty years, and I have a widespread connection with at least one hundred successful authors.  I've befriended a few of my favorite writers, and have kept my labor of love the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction going as an open forum blog for fourteen years now.  

    My mom is eighty years old and going healthy and strong, despite or because of the roster of typical medications someone of her age are on, blood thinners etc. Her vitality and energy and drive are things I obviously inherited from her, genetically, and she's happily married to her 3rd husband going on 28 years now.  We are blessed in this life in far more ways than we might ordinarily stop to consider. I am so thankful for not only having a dream in my heart since I was a teenager, but that the flame that keeps it kindled is going stronger than ever after all these years, despite the string of hardships and tragedies that lie behind me in my wake.  I'm grateful for having kept an open mind enough my whole life to not really double down on any given conviction concerning our reality, divinity, or any other such matters. 

    My personal relationship with the universe appears to remain sustained and centered from the vantagepoint of knowing we exist here on Earth in this singular oasis amid oceans of time our minds cannot fully fathom.  I'm indebted to all my teachers and friends and family for their guidance and for showing me support by acknowledging my existence.  I have discovered my own way of refraining from absolute conclusions enough to cultivate my capacity to believe anything in the face of a world growing and changing so fast as to keep anyone's head spinning from it all.  By grounding myself as an agnostic, I have created an eye in the storm, and balanced my ability to keep the chaos just beyond arm's reach.  From this neutral cockpit I've allowed my life to be directed. Praise be to the lack of void and the void from which this lack of it lasts.