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grinned. “Yes, wasn’t that cool!”
    “It was. You didn’t make it happen?”
    “Nope. The whole dream was unscripted; that was the best part. Only where I drove up in the Aston and she and Tuna were already waiting here—I made that up. But afterwards it was all free style.”
    “Then hat-tip to you, Brother. I think she’s hooked. Wait a minute—do you hear something?”
    A familiar rumbling came from far down the road. The two men looked at each other and shook their heads simultaneously—neither knew what was happening and certainly hadn’t summoned whatever was coming their way.
    The noise grew but oddly nothing appeared.
    Tony Night finally asked, “Is this something you cooked up?”
    “No, I have no idea what it is.”
    Louder and louder until the colossal sound felt like it was right on top of them but still they saw nothing.
    Then as quickly the noise subsided—much faster than it did the time the rhinos and bullterriers raced by them.
    Tony Night slapped his forehead “Ah, I know what that was—the ants . How could I forget? Jeez, I live in your world only a few weeks and already I’m forgetting things.”
    “ What ants? What are you talking about?”
    “The ants in big shoes.”
    Tony Day stared blankly at the other man, completely lost.
    “You don’t remember?”
    “Remember what ?”
    “Your ant nightmares.”
    Another huh ? look from Tony Day.
    “ Really , you don’t remember? Wow, that’s incredible. When we were a boy you saw an old black and white cartoon about a picnic overrun by ants. I thought it was funny and harmless, but for some reason you latched onto the idea and many of the worst nightmares of our whole childhood were centered around ants wearing big shoes kidnapping you and taking you prisoner inside an anthill as big as a Disneyland ride.”
    “No way! I don’t remember any of that.”
    “It’s the truth, Buddy: You were scared shitless of a bunch of ants wearing brown wingtip shoes on their feet. I thought it was only a dopey cartoon, but you sure didn’t; you used to wake up screaming and brushing your arms crazily like they were climbing all over you.” Tony Night pointed to the empty road in front of them. “Ergo I think we witnessed the return of the biggest boogey men of our youth—ants in big shoes. Welcome back to Tony Dreamland.”
     

     
    The real trouble began when both men fell in love. In one case it was entirely predictable, but in the other not so. Much to his surprise, Lena Schabort made Tony Night a better man. That sounds like an old bromide but in this case it was true. Almost more interesting was the fact he made Lena a better woman.
    It began with the sex, which was fireworks between them from the start and more than enough to make Tony Night happy and content. Lena seemed happy too and for those first few weeks they spent most of their time together in bed.
    But one day at work she walked by his desk and dropped a note on it. He was surprised to see she didn’t stop to watch while he read it as she’d done before when her first note to him at the office said “I want your tongue in my mouth right now.” This time she almost flung her second note onto his desk and hurried away without even glancing at him. He thought that was sort of odd, but Lena had her own way of doing things and so far he was okay with it.
    Unlike the first note which had been carefully folded in two, this piece of paper was crumpled up into a tight ball like something to throw away. Only later did he learn Lena almost did throw the note away because she was afraid of how he would react to its message. That explained the crumple.
     
    “Thank you for last night. It was tender and wild and beautiful. Like rearranging the clouds.”
     
    Tony read the note, blinked, re-read it and then read it again in rising wonder. Lena had written this? He looked up quickly but of course she was nowhere to be seen. In fact she was back at her desk far across the office hunched