The Healer

Last night I had a dream. Crazy dream. Anything I wanted to know … anyplace I needed … to go …

Well, not exactly. But it was strange.

I dreamt I was wandering the streets of New York City. 1970s New York City: dirty, litter-strewn and sweaty, menace tangible on every street corner. To show I wasn’t afraid I made a point to turn into every alleyway and at least nose my way in a little before returning to the gritty numbered streets. Who I was proving my bona fides to I don’t know, but it seemed important in the dream.

In one alleyway I spotted a stone staircase heading down underground. I hesitated, then descended a ways into a little passage, then climbed up stairs into a cave hewn straight from granite. It was open to the sky, but I couldn’t see the surrounding terrain, though I intuited I was still in the City.

Sitting on a rock before me was an old man. And at his feet, laying on its side, was a deer, panting slowly.

The old man was quietly weeping. I patiently listened as he explained, in broken sentences, that the deer was his best friend … and his best friend was once a man! Something – a witch, an evil spirit, I’m not sure it was spelled out in the dream – something had turned this friend into a deer, and that deer was dying at the man’s feet.

I understood that the old timer was going to cut off the deer’s legs to save it from its wounds (not sure what its wounds were, but in the dream I felt it had something to do with a curse). Then I stepped up and told him not to do so. “Stand back,” I said with conviction.

Reaching down, I gripped the deer’s hide tightly. “Be healed!” I commanded.

But before I saw the results of my invocation, I found myself moving out of the chamber into another passageway … that led to a banquet hall. My wife and daughters were with me as I entered, and we passed tables of food looking for a place to sit. I passed a family member (a photographer by trade) who handed me a glass of ice cold orange slices and said that my oldest daughter had left this at her seat.

Okay. If there’s any Great Wisdom in that segment of the dream, I’m at a loss.

Then I noticed a table with books stacked on it, like a store display. I always am curious when it comes to books, so I went right up and nearly fell over in shock at the novel on display:

The Healer, by Stephen King, with a picture of a deer on the cover!