White sky, a horizon lost in drizzle, a soft gray-green sea. And me, walking along an endless pier. Before me, behind me, it bleeds into the white, like a man at a loss for words. This is it, the whole world, just sea, mist, pier, and me, in a damp, clinging dress, not quite warm enough, walking in the rain.

The endless pier ends. I lean on the rail and stare at the low, slow, sleepy waves. Paws pad behind me. I don't turn. I know who it is. Chandler, the lion-man, walks up. Lion in a trench coat. My lover, the private eye.

He had a lead. He told me not to come, it's dangerous. I did anyway, and say it anyway: "Chandler... don't do it."

He grabs me hard, pricking me with his foreclaws. Gives me one long raspy lion-lick, and then he leaps over the rail onto the water.

Not into. Onto.

He's good. Real good. So good he can walk on water.

The drunken mutter of a speedboat idling. The chug grows till the boat coalesces from the rain. Four or five men, hatted and huddled, indistinct. It passes the wharf's end, a hundred yards away.

And Chandler charges. His paws carve shell-like gouts from the water's face as he goes from zero to thirty in two seconds. A zigzag stitch of spray arcs behind him, and already he's there, pouncing on the boat.

But they're gone! They jumped over the side and ran. Not swam. Ran. They splash and scatter like amphetamine ducks. Like a swarm of trenchcoat Jesuses!

My love leaps after them, and fear stabs me. For the first time, he's up against men with powers like his own. What if he dies?

It bursts out of me, like someone else's voice. "DON'T LEAVE ME!" I cry, then grip the rail in shame. Distraction now could kill him.

Clomp clomp clomp behind me. Dark shapes coalesce from mist, stalk up the pier. Hard-eyed men, more of the gang. He was right; I shouldn't have come.

I either have to fight them, which I can't... or... or try walking on water myself. Can I do it? Dare I follow my love?

But I guess I'm gonna find out.

NOTES WHEN I WAKE

• Raymond Chandler = today I worked out the chords to a Robyn Hitchcock song, "Raymond Chandler Evening", a pastiche of the film noir motifs, dry humor, and wild similes that distinguish Chandler's stories.
• Walk on water = Chandler's private eye Marlowe has an almost inhuman integrity. He's a gun-toting Jesus! So of course he can charge on water...
• Why he's a lion, I dunno... except lions turn me on. Does he stand for courage? I'm more of a mouse... needing to find the lioness inside me.
• The gang of smugglers = underdogs or Jungian shadows, having to sneak around the conscious's constraints... smuggling someone or something in that I need, but forbid? Also... they too can walk on water, suggesting their integrity and power matches Chandler's; their purpose may be clandestine but vital. And fear of them drives me to take a step I never would on my own... typical Shadow work.
• Fragile woman steps off pier = Today I read Flora Schreiber's book Sybil, on a woman with multiple personalities. Her equilibrium's so fragile! One self-destructive part walks into a pond in Central Park, brrr... She doesn't drown or freeze, but the point's made: all her personalities are hostage to any one of them that gets suicidal.
• The water = the social swim? A common symbol in my dreams. I'm shy and find socializing scary.
• ACTION: Sink or swim! I no longer have the choice to just watch others fall in love, taking the risks while I try to learn at a distance. I may be fragile from old abuse, but now there's a fierce side of me, who loves me but will leave me behind...

  If I don't take the leap.

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