My first dream of the New Year was short, but far from sweet. I had just awakened in the morning, and rolled over to go back to sleep, and as I did, I had one of those short little dreams that you tend to have when you’re in the in-between stages of sleep, and fading off again.

* * * *

I’m riding my mountain bike on a grassy double-track road across a field of foot-high yellow wheat, and there are farms on each side for miles in every direction. I ride along the road, and I notice the dirt and rocks and sticks, and I avoid the larger obstacles. The road comes to an end, and I come to an open gate that marks the edge of someone’s property. There is a barbed-wire fence separating this property from the adjacent ones.

I dismount from my bike and walk toward the gate. A thin, grizzled farmer in his late fifties walks up to the gate, greets me, and says, “That’s about as far as this road goes. You can get through this way [he gestures toward his house], but it’s probably better for you to just go back the way you came. Be careful, though. The most dangerous part is right up there.” He points at a spot about fifty yards up the road. I didn’t notice anything unusual on my way in, but I nod and keep my mouth shut. He seems to sense my disbelief. “There’ve been serial killers near here,” he says. “Good luck to you. See ya around.” He turns and starts to walk back toward his house. He gives me one of those little over-the-shoulder waves without looking back, and I turn around and walk my bike back up the road, in the direction from which I came.

As soon as I get to the point on the road that the farmer had gestured to, a man comes running toward me at an impossible speed, firing blast after blast from his gigantic shotgun.

That scared the hell out of me and woke me up. Nice way to start the year.