I Do Not Like Mondays

Lead image by Engin Akyurt, Pexels

Many years ago when I was just a boy — this would be about 40 or so years ago now — something strange happened to me one day while I was on a family vacation, and I’ll tell you about it.

We had taken a trip, one of several as I was growing up, to Rockport, Massachusetts. It’s just a small town on the coast of that state, about 20 miles northeast of Boston, and as I remember it, it was a fishing village, or at least it was back then. Everything about it screamed the Atlantic Ocean, and the coast of the old United States.  

Rockport was named just like it actually was: there was a lighthouse there, and probably still is, to warn ships of the very rocky coastline. We were staying in a cottage right near those rocks, which were huge and made a hill. At the bottom of the rocky hill was ocean, and at the top was the cabin where we stayed. There was a whole row of them.

It was exactly the kind of place that, as a probably seven- or eight-year-old kid, was amazing to climb on those rocks and look for whatever had washed up from the ocean between and onto them.

One evening, we went to go out to dinner as a family. We chose to go to a restaurant called the Peg Leg. I believe the place isn’t even in business anymore, and is now long gone.

For a kid, this restaurant was a little scary, since it had this enormous, (you guessed it) peg-legged wooden pirate on its roof. It was a somewhat strange place, and the pirate had a somewhat strange look about him.

We went to go eat there, but there was a long line and we were told we’d have to wait a while to be seated. I believe my family at the time was only my older brother, myself and my toddler and infant sisters, along with our parents.

So my older brother and I went outside to play for a little bit and kill some time while we had to wait. The Peg Leg Restaurant was right near a sandy beach and the ocean. Next to it was a small, open field with a trickling stream that ran alongside the restaurant and ultimately to the Atlantic.

My brother and I decided to play around in that small field. But as soon as I set foot on it, I felt like something strange was going on. It was like stepping into a dream, or dream-like state.

Near the stream in this field was a smallish, odd-looking tree. It looked big enough to climb, so I made for the tree and intended to climb around in it.

When I got to the tree, I found something was there: there was, of all things, a hard-boiled egg yolk sitting on one of the limbs where it sprang out from the tree’s trunk. I remember I looked at the egg yolk and sort of cocked my head off to the side inquisitively, wondering why it was there.

I picked it up and, not knowing what to do with it, threw it at the little stream that was right near this tree. The yolk came to rest almost perfectly on a flat rock there in the middle of the stream.

Then, and it was almost instantly, two eels appeared out of nowhere in the stream, one of them to the far right of my peripheral vision and the other to the far left. They sped toward the yolk that I’d just thrown in.

The eels reached the egg yolk at exactly the same time. For a moment, since they’d come at it with open mouths and chomped, they sort of “kissed” nose-to-nose. Nothing happened for that moment — it was like time had frozen.

Then suddenly, the two eels broke their heads in either direction, wrestling apart the egg yolk, each of the eels getting half. They then streaked away in the directions from which they’d come and vanished just as quickly as they’d arrived. I just sat there staring, sort of frozen and fixated on the stream myself. I still felt like I was walking in a dream.

My brother and I went back inside the restaurant at that point, and my family had dinner and carried on with our vacation/holiday. I think of those trips to Rockport fondly, and sometimes I allow my mind to go back there.

That stream and tree, however, have subsequently and on a number of occasions appeared in my dreams. And it’s always the same dream.

When I dream of that place, I’m a boy again, and I climb the tree. The tree somehow teaches me to fly — what happens is that I jump off a limb and sort of float down to the ground more slowly than I should, then climb the tree again and jump off again, each time floating down more slowly.

Eventually in these dreams, I jump out of the tree and never touch the ground, and I just put my hands out with palms down as if I can grab the air itself somehow and hold myself up. I then push down with my hands and am propelled upward, and in this way I can “fly” and float slowly down, back to earth, only never touching it.

They are among my favorite dreams that I have, and I look forward to these “flying” dreams I have from time to time. But there was always something a little strange about that place — something very dreamlike, surreal, eerie — that I can remember very palpably and instantly to this day.

What does it all mean? What’s the significance of what actually happened while I was there, and what is the meaning of the dreams I continue to have of the place? I’m not sure about any of those things, so you be your own judge, and think as you will.

Content © Aaron G. Marsh

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