Walking in the hills near my parents' house, I meet a skinny Eurasian-looking girl with a long ponytail who's riding down the trail--riding a tigerlike alien from another world. The tiger doesn't speak English; she does, but with an accent I don't recognize--is she an off-worlder too?

They act strangely toward me--block my way, bristle, threatening, though the tiger doesn't actually touch me. I back away uneasily. The tiger pads after me, sometimes bounding off to the side or around me to block my way back down some branch of the trail.

Finally I realize--they're herding me up into the hills somewhere!

I stand my ground and yell "What do you think I am, a sheep?!"

The girl gets off the tiger. He rears upright and approaches me, front paw out. Hand, I guess: unlike an earth-tiger, he has opposable thumbs. On his pink leather palm is a two-inch cube of raw flesh! I translate this as an ultimatum: he'll eat me if I don't go where they're taking me.

Now I'm really mad. I feel like I'm part me and part another man with some combat experience. We/I have a weapon--not sure if it's an energy gun or just a spell he directs with his finger, but it's powerful and long-distance. I urge him to use it. It's his decision: he's the character in this story, I'm just the reader...

The girl is riding the tiger again, ahead of us. Together they seem almost a horse: with her long hair, she's like a horse's arched neck and mane. He/I point at them, aim, but he won't fire. Doesn't mind hurting the girl, after that death threat, and there are lots of them around, but he balks at the tiger--the only one in this world. And they're almost fused when riding, he can't hit just one, not safely.

He lets them go on, follows where they want us to go. It's a ranch home near my parents', on the shoulder of Water Tank Hill in the San Mateo Highlands. A long thin house, barely distinguished from its neighbors, from the outside. Unsure we're in one at first. But the sidewalk slowly encloses to become a long hall, with bedrooms on both sides. The girl and tiger go into the middle one on the left. I wait a while but they don't reappear. Warily I slink forward and peer in the open door. They're on the bed. From this angle I can only see their feet, but she's lying on top of him, and they seem to be making love. I suspected that--they felt as close as lovers.

I can't kill them now either. I go on down to the bedroom at the south end of the hall. Mine? Though the house is quite unfamiliar, it feels like mine!

I set up my defenses in this bedoom. Prepare weapons... I'll fight them, even kill them, if they order me around any more. I came here without a fight, but that's the absolute limit of my tolerance. They owe me an explanation and an apology...

But I wake without it. No confrontation, no explanation. Brought here... why?

IN THE MORNING

• That cube of flesh reminds me of the "pound of flesh" in Merchant Of Venice. What else? A shared purchase with a friend just went sour; I took all the loss, and feel she took advantage of me. I did lose a pound of flesh over it--the stress ruined my digestion this week. And losing weight is bad for me--I'm underweight.
• Or is the cube of flesh saying "You must eat meat"? I'm vegetarian, but my body craves more protein. I'm allergic to cheese and don't digest beans well, so it's a struggle. But unless I get dreams saying plainly "it's a survival issue" I won't eat meat--it's immoral.
• House = house of healthier family? The only person I knew on that block was a gifted kid, one of the few in the neighborhood I saw as an intellectual peer (and he was happier). His parents seemed calmer than mine, more supportive. So is the tiger and his mate dragging me away from my family's patterns, to a house of SANITY?
• Tiger = echoes a friendly dream figure I met nearly four years ago. I not only liked that tiger, I BECAME him, saw through his eyes. I thought we were friends--why won't he tell me what's going on? But then, how'd I get so suspicious I'd consider killing him? How'd we get so estranged?

FOUR YEARS LATER I wish I could explain this dream neatly to you--but it's been years and I still don't know. The tiger never returned to explain, with or without that creepy chunk of flesh.

I wish he would. I wish he would.

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