My Tori Amos Dream

I had the following dream (with some small variations) again. I love this dream; it is one of the few recurring dreams that I look forward to. Most of my recurring dreams are violent, scary, or disturbing.

Note: I previously posted this on my website. But, since I dreamed it again, and I never updated that website, I thought I'd move it here and share with a new audience.

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I am in some unnamed city and it is dark and cold, sometimes it is raining outside, and some force or event or need drives me to seek shelter in a bar. It is one of those bars that you walk down into and no matter when you stop by, day or night, it has this cloud of smoky air and a perpetual darkness about it.

If it's raining, my pants and shirt are soaked, as though the jacket I am wearing wasn't made for the amount of precipitation unleashed outside.

I order a Pepsi from the somewhat attractive but certainly life-weary waitress and sit down at a table toward the back. I notice a woman at the piano in the corner with an old brandy snifter partly filled with bills and change. She's just beginning to entertain the meager audience.

Counting myself, the audience is mostly men, with only one or two women hidden in dark corners. Everyone else looks like they have grown into their chairs and I guess they are this bar's regulars. Each is drinking away some part of his life he would rather forget or not be involved in.

As I slump into a seat at a table and let the events that carried me here spill over my memory, the piano eases to life. The red-headed woman begins to sing. The songs are painfully well-known to me. I examine the singer more carefully and see it is Tori Amos.

Even in the reality that is the dream, I am not surprised to see her here.

She plays some cut down versions of 'Little Earthquakes,' 'Crucify,' and 'Concertina,' then kicks into a rocking version of 'Caught a Lite Sneeze.' She pauses long enough that I almost think she's finished. She closes her eyes, and begins to sing 'China.'

She invests her entire self in the song, her lower lip constantly kissing the bottom of the black and silver microphone and quivering slightly.

She does not open her eyes and the mourning in her voice and the sad sob that creeps out during the high notes brings me to tears. Her voice becomes gravelly and full of anguish during the low lyrics.

"China, all the way to New York..."

I sit mesmerized. All sound outside of the piano and her voice cease to exist. I am transported to a world of pain and loss and unfulfilled love.

"Sometimes, I think you want me to touch you..."

Tori is barely moving. Her hands on the piano's ebony and ivory keys seem to move of their own volition. I barely see her draw breath. She is elsewhere and the song sings itself.

"Funny how the distance learns to grow..."

I see a tear streak down her face as I feel wetness on mine. I can't move. I don't remember blinking. My heart is stuck between rhythms.

"I can feel the distance... I can feel the distance..."

The song finishes. Tori stays at the piano, her polished nails poised over the piano keys and her funny-shaped lip still shaking and just, just, touching the microphone. It is very quiet in the bar. The few customers are all, like me, mesmerized.

Finally, the Muse releases her and Tori is able to whisper a very faint, almost hoarse "Thank you" into the stillness.

This releases me. I stumble forward, the half finished Pepsi, forgotten, sweating a large wet circle onto the Formica tabletop.

I pull a bill, I don't know what denomination, out of my pocket and slip it into the brandy snifter. Tori doesn't even look at me as she begins the initial notes to 'Happy Phantom.'

I bend close to her ear and whisper a throaty, "Thank you."

The barest hint of a smile plays in the corners of her too-red lips. The curls of her red hair then move to cover her expression in that way that only women's hair can.

I touch her shoulder with a very brief squeeze, then hurry toward the door and whatever waits outside.

The world looks remarkably fresher and cleaner as I emerge from the bar. And I can die happy, because I have experienced Tori Amos singing 'China' in a smoke-filled bar.