Circa March, 2015

I awoke a little on edge, hungry. I’d eaten the normal dosage of food yesterday. I’d even managed to get down the better part of a cooked tomato, which I’d previously loathed but actually tasted pretty good here in Costa Rica. Moreover, I typically had coffee for breakfast and didn’t eat until lunch so the hunger is a mystery.

I’d been dreaming about zombies. In my dream, which was akin to a video game, I’d been running up and down dark streets dodging various zombies as they appeared in my path. Unlike real life, where the act of running is a finite event with a serious deterioration in performance with every passing step, my dream-me maintained a brisk pace that showed no signs of slowing. There was, however, a power bar gauge in the top left of my display (this dream was in third-person-view) and that gauge had taken a hit as the run progressed.

I saw no doors on the buildings I passed in what was apparently zoned as a commercial district in dream world. Instead, I ran past a series of dark facades on equally dark streets where resident zombies joined the growing pack trailing behind me.

I rounded a particular corner and found myself at a dead end. Warning bells sounded. For some reason a 60 foot tall chain link fence separated me from freedom.

Out of nowhere, a calm voice called out, “Hey buddy, over here.”

I turned to look at what had previously been a blank wall but what was now an open doorway. In that doorway, in full game gear with a basketball tucked under one arm, stood Reggie Miller of Indianapolis Pacers fame. Wow! Reggie Miller! He always seemed like a really cool guy. Unless you’re a Knick fan. Or Spike Lee.

Reggie beckoned me with an impossibly long arm, “You need to get out of the street. It’s safe in here.”

With the snarls of the zombie pack growing in volume I took Reggie’s lead and followed him into the doorway. Within a few steps the ceiling disappeared. I was in an urban garden. Reggie, now dressed in a stylish suit that befits his current status as a network commentator, reached down and grabbed a handful of rich, dark soil. He rubbed the soil between his amazingly long fingers. “You’ll be safe here. In here it’s all good.”

With his other hand he plucked a large, ripe tomato from a nearby plant and offered it to me. While I’d recently consumed a cooked tomato, I would never, even in Costa Rica, eat a raw tomato. I do not like them, Sam I Am. For whatever reason though, here in Reggie MIller’s urban garden of the zombie apocalypse, a tomato didn’t sound that bad.

Now that I thought about it, this was the point at which I’d awoken hungry, and edgy. There’s apparently a lot going on in my addled brain, but two things are clear: 1) tomatoes haunt me in my dreams, and 2) no more Plants vs. Zombies before bed.

The odd fixation on Reggie Miller? Well, that will just have to wait.