Gut Feelings Can Come True

Greg woke up early in the morning with an impatience that he could neither resist nor explain. It was the first morning of the new year, one of the few days in which he allowed himself to sleep in late. But that wasn’t going to be the case on this day. No sleeping position that he tried worked. Neither did ever diminishing bottles of beer on the wall that ‘happened to fall’. So he got up

Gregg was experiencing a gut feeling that he should be somewhere soon. He just didn’t know the location or why he should want to go there. He just felt the desire. 

The best remedy that he could come up with was that he should go for a very long walk. That should at least diminish some of the energy away from his gut feeling of impatience.

He soon became frustrated with how long it took him to get dressed. Finding each article of winter clothing – toque, mitts, coat and boots capable of walking in snow- took way too long, or at least that is what his impatience communicated to him, and he accepted the message without question.

Greg Goes for an Important Walk

Greg walked at a brisk pace, faster than some joggers run. Even at such a rate he could not diminish his gut feeling of impatience. It kept on driving him ever forward. Then a strange thing happened. He was walking beside a small, wooded area known locally as ‘The Park’. And once he was almost past it, he began feeling quite differently. It was like his impatience had drained completely out. He stopped walking. While it seemed at first that he had got what he wanted, that was not the case. He felt like he had lost a sense of purpose. This was a feeling that he had often been experiencing over the last few weeks since he had broken up with his girlfriend Anna of nearly two years. She had told him that she felt that he was “too boring and predictable” and that he had “no sense of adventure.” While he had his work as a successful accountant, and that was satisfying in its own way, despite what Anna had repeatedly said about it, and although his family and friends had expressed support for him since the breakup, there was still something missing. And he felt that Anna had been his last chance for a meaningful relationship with a woman. He was very pessimistic that way for someone who was only 30 years old.

So, Greg turned around and walked in the opposite direction, headed for home. The impatience returned, and, strangely, he was content with that. It was like it was his ‘new normal,’ making being relaxed unsatisfying. His impatience peaked when he was approaching the path that led into the park. He took that as a sign of where he should go. So he took to the path, with a heightening sense of adventure that Anna had said that he did not have.

Greg walked down the path until he came to the middle of the park, where there was a pond around which were placed several benches. There was a woman sitting on one of those benches. Without putting any conscious thought into it, he went straight in her direction. She had long shiny black hair and a black dress, both in deep contrast to the snow lying on the ground and covering the ice on the pond. She stood up as he approached her. As he got a closer look at her, he had the distinct feeling that he had seen her somewhere before in another time and place.

He was so embedded in surprise regarding seeing the woman and her standing up as he approached her, that it took him a while to notice that his impatience had slipped away, like snow off of the roof of a car on a day early in spring.

She Speaks

Then she speaks. “Hello Greg. I have two important questions for you. First of all I want to ask you whether you are available for a relationship.” Greg nodded rather slowly in positive response. Secondly, do you believe that witches exist? Take your time in answering this question.

Greg did not know how he should answer this question. He would definitely have to think his answer through carefully. Judging from the rather Goth look of the woman, he crafted the following reply. 

“Yes, I do believe that they exist. However, I do not think that they are the ‘evil’ (finger quotes) beings that they historically have been portrayed as being.”

“Right answer, to both questions. Now you can go back home, maybe get some sleep, and we will see each other soon.”

Greg didn’t particularly like the going back home part, but he took hope in the last part of the sentence. He turned slowly and walked away. The gut feeling of impatience was still gone. Strangely, when he turned his head to look back at her as he was leaving the park, she was nowhere in sight, but there was a rather large raven perched on the bench.

Then, as if by magic, he woke up in his bed. This had all been a very vivid dream. But it seemed to serve a purpose. Upon waking, he remembered where and when he had seen her before. It was in his local bar, a British-style place called the Black Bull, two weeks before. And she had been sitting at a table for two, but alone. He may have imagined it, but he seemed to recall that she looked a few times in his direction, as he did in hers. 

That Night

That night he went to the Black Bull. He knew that it was distinctly possible that she would not be there, and that he would be disappointed. But still, it would be something of an adventure, something Anna said that he did not have a capacity for.

He sat down at the bar, as he always did. Then he looked around. Amazed but not surprised, he saw her.  She was sitting at the same table where she had been the last and only time that he had seen her. He did not hesitate to stand up and take his beer with him. 

“May I sit at your table.”

She extended her left hand out, palm up in response. Then he said,

“Let me tell you about a dream I had this morning.”

At no point during his telling of the story did she look surprised. At the end of his tale, she laughed and said, “You see. You were right about witches. And we do cast spells.” So saying, she pointed her left hand to him, twisted her wrist 180 degrees and back again, and did so twice, muttering words he could not readily comprehend. They drank and they talked like they had known each other for years. As he opened the door for her as they went to leave the bar together at closing time, he asked her whether she would turn back into a raven again. She replied, “Only if you turn your back on me. Only then.” Greg silently vowed that wasn’t about to happen.