"A PREMONITORY DREAM"
A New York press tycoon (whom we will call Mr.
X) sent for Michael and Jacob early in the morning. The man had had a dream
that night and feared that the dream was premonitory. He had great faith in
premonitory dreams. Once he dreamed that it would rain and it rained all day
long. On another occasion he dreamed that a man stabbed him in the back and it
also rained all day long. So it's no wonder that Mr. X had faith in premonitory
dreams. But the dream of that night was so odd, that Michel and Jacob reassured
him about it. Besides, the day had dawned sunny and there was nothing that
presaged that it was going to rain. But Mr. X really looked like he was not
holding together well, and he asked them not to lose sight of him until he came
home at night. It was just a precautionary measure. Just in case he was
swallowed by a whale as he had dreamed.
Michael and Jacob scrupulously fulfilled their
mission and throughout that day they accompanied Mr. X everywhere and had their
eyes wide open so that no whales escaped their control. Mr. X stayed late
working at his office, and when the three men returned to the Park Avenue
mansion, it was late at night. The butler informed Mr. X that his wife was
waiting for him in bed, "laying eggs" (sic). Michael and Jacob were
ready to call it a day, but Mr. X reminded them that the day was not over yet.
Until he was in his bedroom and had locked the door, he would not feel safe.
Anyway, that was not going to take long since he had no intention of dining and
was eager to meet his beloved wife.
With one thing and another (Mr. X had the
hygienic habit, before going to bed, of brushing every inch of his body with a
toothbrush), they delayed three hours more. Then, Mr. X paid their fee and was
going to enter the bedroom when suddenly Michael had a bad feeling:
"Wait!", he shouted.
Mr. X jumped and stopped in his tracks with one
hand on the doorknob.
"It's in there where you dreamed about the
whale, right?"
"That's right..."
"Then, if you allow me, I'd like to take a
look."
"Go ahead, but don't startle my wife"
"Don't worry. I'll just take a look
through the half-open door."
Slowly so as not to make noise, Michael turned
the doorknob and opened just enough to look stealthily inside. What he saw
froze the blood in his veins. A whale the size of the room was in there stuffed
like a canned sardine. Immediately he slammed the door, shaking the foundations
of the house as well as those of Mr. X and Jacob. "What the hell is going
on?!", Mr. X blurted out.
The face of Michael had turned white because of
the stupor: "Don't enter there! You were right: the dream was premonitory!
There is a huge whale inside! We'll need a harpoon!"
At that moment, they jumped out of fright when
the door suddenly opened. "Caroline!" exclaimed Mr. X when he saw his
beloved wife standing in the doorway with a face of disgust, curls in her hair
and a robe that covered a body that was certainly bulky. "Couldn't you
make a little more noise?" she blurted out sarcastically, and slammed the
door right in their faces. Red with anger, Mr. X turned to Michael: "So a
whale, right?". "I assure you that there was a whale inside!",
Michael insisted.
"Do you insist on insulting my wife,
miserable?! (and he began to shout for the butler) Felix! Throw this pair of
bums out of my house!"
Soon after, Michael and Jacob were arguing
while walking down Park Avenue:
"Man, the woman is fat indeed, but to call
her a whale... You might try being a bit more tactful in future."
"I saw what I saw! And I assure you that
what I saw was a whale! A real whale!"
The next day, the cover of Mr. X's newspaper
was totally occupied by the tragic news of his death as a result of having been
swallowed by a whale in his own bedroom. A controversial columnist suggested an
explanation drawn from an Irish folk tale that spoke of a fisherman who caught
in his nets a mermaid who agreed to become human to marry him but with the
condition that no one in her presence ever mentioned the word
"mermaid". If that happened, she would go back to her original
nature.
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