God has a handful of crystal balls

in my dream, and as He rolls them around like Captain Queeg they make that gritty sound that marbles used to make in my pocket. Tonight I've got God looking at all the marbles I ever had - swirls of manuscripts under glass, a few pursies. And He pats me on the back and says, "GOOD boy, you did it all for Poetry." Then I say, "But now I want to try other things, like writing fiction." You know what he says? - "You just did." Just like those antacid commercials. He's a hoot that God; you can never tell when He's kidding. He's amorphous, taking on the shapes of people and things all around you; the crystal balls took on the whirling colors of the dreams I tumble into after late-night reading and writing.

I awake, my mind racing. The Rabbi says: "Pray as though it were all up to God; Act as though it were all up to you." This dream keeps rolling over and over through my mind, inspected from every angle - a Faberge Egg I can't afford to drop. Who cares if it's three am and I have to leave at six? I reach for the light and get a faceful of Philodendron. So I have this thing about the number three . . . and like Pavarotti says, "I'm very religious and very superstitious - just in case."

Better write down this whole scene exactly as it panned out. Looks promising - factors of three involved. "Hope Philodendron starts with 'ph,'" I mumble, opening my bedside dictionary. "Philology - an excellent word - three definitions down! Who can sleep, with this much luck!"