I had the strangest dream!! In the dream I am, no kidding, at Hillary Clinton's house. I'm hanging out with the whole family! Bill is there, John Pedesta, even my heart throb Van Jones is there. Huma Abedin is there too and I get the impression everyone is glad she left her crazy husband at home. All kinds of people are crowded in the place. Most of them I don't know but there are plenty of familiar people I've seen on TV. It's this nice, relaxed, casual weekend party ... a barbecue or something.
In the middle of all these people, I'm kneeling on the floor in the living room, helping Chelsea's kid with some sort of art project. As if I even know Chelsea's kid or even that I like kids.
Hillary walks up to us and in this dream it's no big deal that she's standing there, looking down at me playing with her grandchild. Hillary says, "What are you doing?"
Curious. Friendly.
"I'm trying to get this damn thing to stick to the paper, but this glue is crap."
She laughs that big laugh of hers. "Most people would be too intimidated to talk to me like that," she says.
It doesn't even dawn on me that she is who she is or that I've just insulted the quality of her glue.
"What?" I say. "It's crappy glue. What can ya do?"
She shakes her head at me, then strolls into the kitchen and is no shit, making cookies! I get up and follow her and ask her where the bathroom is. She's in this big gleaming, white kitchen alone, dolloping cookie dough onto a sheet, her fingers all covered in gooey sweetness. She's smiling and kind of dancing to the radio. Her hair is perfect. She's wearing that red lipstick of hers and a checkered apron. She looks so happy to be making cookies. At my question, she doesn't look as she points a doughy finger toward a half-bath close by.
I go in the bathroom and sit on the pot, trying not to look at my reflection in the mirror right in front of me. I hate looking at myself in the mirror when I'm sitting on a toilet. Why do bathrooms always have a mirror right in front of the dang toilet?
Seconds later, Chelsea's husband, Marc opens the door. I could have sworn I locked it, but somehow, he's standing there with the door wide open, all these people standing behind him casually looking in. At me.
He sticks his arm out and says, "I brought you better glue."
He's got this dopey smile on his face like he's really being helpful. I'm staring at him with my mouth open. "I'm using the bathroom for christ sake!" I'm shocked and pissed because my pants are around my ankles and I'm in the middle of taking a piss, which I'm sure of because, try as I might, I can't avoid seeing my naked butt in the dang mirror.
Hillary is just screaming laughing now. That huge belly laugh of hers, but it's not like the campaign laugh. It sounds really genuine. "Oh Marc, get out of there," she says. "Let her use the bathroom."
He's all embarrassed. "Oh! Sorry," he says and leaves.
I yell, "Well don't leave the door open, jeeze!" And I slam the door...and I wake up laughing going, WHAT IN THE HOLY HELL DID I JUST DREAM!?
And I think it's cause it's over and she's not going to run for office anymore and no one is calling her names or threatening to put her in jail or saying she's some horrible, evil entity trying to take over the world and she can just be in her kitchen and make cookies if she wants (or run the Clinton Foundation) and maybe Chelsea is next in line and WHATEVER! I don't give a shit. That dream was amazing and for the first time in four days it doesn't feel like the end of the world.
M. L. Doyle has served in the U.S. Army at home and abroad for more than two decades as both a soldier and civilian. Mary is the author of The Desert Goddess series, an urban fantasy romp consisting of The Bonding Spell and The Bonding Blade. She has also penned The Master Sergeant Harper mystery series which has earned numerous awards including an IPPY, a Lyra Award and the Carrie McCray Literary Award. Mary is the co-author of two memoirs; A Promise Fulfilled; the story of a Wife and Mother, Soldier and General Officer (Jan. 201) and the memoir, I’m Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen—My Journey Home (Touchstone, 2010), which was nominated for an NAACP Image award. Mary's work has been published by The Goodman Project, The War Horse, The WWrite Blog and The Wrath-Bearing Tree, an online magazine for which she serves as a fiction editor. A Minneapolis, Minnesota native, Mary current lives in Baltimore. You can reach her at her website at mldoyleauthor.com.
