Waking up with a beard in strange places.

"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man."


I ponder this statement as I ponder many quotes during the day. How many volumes does my beard speak? Will my beard bring about peace in some strange part of the universe that has yet to be discovered? Can I save someone with my beard from falling fragments of a discarded/exploded satellite?

As I think on these things, I scratch my beard. My thoughts wander away from me. Literally. The scratching sends me into a trance of sorts where my mind contemplates everything and nothing. It is blank and full at the same time. I can feel nothing but the satisfying scratching and hear nothing but the "skrittch skrittch" of my fingernails against my bearded cheek.

I pause for a moment. I find that I've closed my eyes and am laying down on my couch where I was, only moments ago, driving my car to the Wawa several blocks away. Suddenly, the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime starts streaming in my head. "How did I get here? How do I work this?" The sample repeats over and over again filling my head with an awful din so loud I have to cover my ears as if the music is coming in and not from within my own subconscious. I shut my eyes again, tighter than before, trying to squeeze out the song. The lyrics. The SAME lyrics are repeating OVER and OVER... FASTER and FASTER. Standing now, I grit my teeth and suddenly...

Darkness.

I open my eyes to darkness. I can hear my heart pounding.





That's when I wake up. It's 2:48am according to my cellphone. I look around. I'm sitting in my car outside my house. I quickly turn on the car and my CD player comes on screaming "Bulls on pah-raaaaaaaaaaid!"

I've been having the weirdest dreams about beards lately...

images from Marc Johns
he owns them.