Dream 07 "The Lake Sturgeon" (Ernest Hemingway, 1923)

As Hadley lay awake beside him, desperately pregnant and uncomfortable, Ernest Hemingway dreamed that it was raining. It had been raining for days, coming down in vast, endless torrents. It hammered at the treetops and at the ground and at the tiles of the roofs in a steady, wet roar.

It rained so hard for so long that Castle Frank Brook swelled and broke its banks. It climbed up the sides of the valley, swamped muddy Bathurst Street and rose higher still. Soon it was spilling in through the open window and lapping up against the edges of their bed.

With the flood came great fish that swam up from the lake. They glided by through the murky water; an enormous old sturgeon circled the dresser and chairs, eyeing Hemingway with an ancient gaze. It seemed as if at any moment, the beast would speak, tell forgotten stories, tales of Huron and Iroquois and of mammoths and wolves. But instead, it opened its jaws, swam toward the bed and swallowed it whole: the sheets, the mattress, the headboard, and Hemingway and Hadley with them, all tumbling down into a dark, fishy abyss.

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