Tomorrow and Jarom's dream

Each morning while gathering together a lunch for work, I hear a telltale thump--Jarom dropping from the ladder on his bunkbed. He always walks out of his room, a little bit slowly, wearing his pajamas or his clothes from the day before, clutching his nicey or one or two stuffed animals. "Hi, Dad," he always says to me. I'm always the first one up, then him.

Today I said to him, "How'd you sleep, Jarom?"

"Why do you ask me that every time?" he asked.

"Because I always want to know."

He then told me about a dream he'd had: "Orion was sledding down a hill in a circle," he said, making a spiral motion with his hands, like the hill was a draining bathtub or a flushed toilet. "Then he got to the bottom, and he bumped into a trashcan."

"That's a funny dream, isn't it," I said to him.

"Yeah. But it's also a little bit sad."

"Why?"

"Because he bumped into a trashcan, and that hurts him."

--- ---

Sometimes the theme song to Annie starts playing in my head in a big, dramatic, orchestrated version. There's a steadily building roll on the timpani and cymbals, which sometimes seems to last forever, as if the theme song is indefinite and will always haunt the attic of my mind, and then crash!--"Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya, tomorrow. You're only a day away!"

"You're only a day-- a-- way-- !"