I wasn’t supposed to be awake.
But the world felt strange. Too quiet to be innocent. One of those rare mornings that slides under the door like a letter you didn’t know was addressed to you.
So I made coffee. Stepped out the back. The porch cats rustled in from the dark—three of them, maybe four. Silent as secrets. I poured a little food into the cracked bowl. They gathered without fuss.
Then I saw him.
Sitting at the far end of the porch in an old wicker chair I didn’t know we owned. Black coat, white shirt, gold watch on a chain. Eyes like storm glass. Carl Jung.
I didn’t say anything. Neither did he.
We sat in silence, letting the dream between us settle. The coffee steamed in my hands. The bowl smoldered at my side. The cats all stared at him like they’d seen him before.
“You’re awake early,” he said finally, in a voice that didn’t echo but implied it had.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Or wouldn’t.”
“Both, maybe.”
He nodded like that was the correct riddle.
“I’ve been reading The Red Book again,” I told him.
He smiled faintly. “That was never written for reading. It was meant for remembering.”
“I thought I was supposed to understand it.”
“Understanding is the polite way we avoid transformation.”
He looked at me, not unkindly. “Did you come out here to smoke, or to descend?”
“I thought I came for the cats.”
He laughed. “They always appear when the soul is near the threshold.”
I lit the bowl. The smoke curled between us like an unfolding archetype.
“I was deep into occult work back when I first read your book,” I said. “But I was also an atheist. Still am.”
“Good,” he said. “God is a dangerous idea. It’s better to court the Self first. The rest will come like weather.”
We sat again. The porch creaked. The cats drifted off, one by one.
“Why do we dream?” I asked.
“To remember the parts of ourselves that haven’t yet come true.”
He paused. “And to speak in the tongue of gods too wild for daylight.”
“You said once that the shadow is ninety percent gold.”
“I did,” he said. “But most people only mine the coal and call it healing.”
“I think I’m still digging.”
“You always will be,” he said. “The trick is learning to love the shovel.”
The sun hadn’t risen, but the air had changed. A kind of violet softness touched the edge of things.
“Is this real?” I asked him.
“You tell me.”
“I want it to be.”
“Then it is.”
He stood. Adjusted his coat. Looked into me more than at me.
“You’re closer than you think,” he said. “The veil is thinner every time you show up.”
He stepped off the porch without a sound. The coffee was still warm. The chair he’d been in was gone.
Only the bowl remained, its smoke drawing shapes I almost recognized.