Dream about Annie

I was setting up my dorm room, getting ready for the new year in college, when Annie called. She doesn't call on the telephone; instead I get an image of her walking with her ex-lover, saying goodbye to him, and I know she wants to talk to me.

I tell her we'll meet at Hoagie Haven. Hoagie Haven is not a couple blocks down the street like in Princeton, but down three twisted back alleyways and into the woods. There are two dirt paths, red dirt, leading to the restaurant, and Annie is walking barefoot down one dirt path. I'm heading up the other one, the one that is littered with trash from the city I just left. Annie's path is leading from the woods, from a sunlit forest on a ridgetop. Two men are following her, like puppies.

The two paths intersect, and we all stop, barefooted Annie and her followers, and me. One of the guys, a dirty, long-haired scruffy man, is asking Annie if it is ever acceptable to die for a plant. Specifically a tree. He's all fired up about some development project, and wants to make a statement by killing himself in front of the trees they are about to destroy. He is arguing philosophy, moral standards, ethical principles. Annie simply says, "No. It's never acceptable to die for a plant." She brushes him aside like a bug circling her head. The other guy is there for advice too, apparently, but after her reaction and figuring out that he is not going to get the answer he wants to hear, he leaves too.

I look at Annie, tall, confident, and I know she's good. I know, in fact, that she is better than she has ever been.

The only bad part of the dream was the 5:00 AM alarm woke me, and I never got my pastrami sandwich.