Pettyman’s new house had a detached garage. Winter is the only season in that part of the country, so he looked forward to parking his car inside. Except there was a dream in there. A big one. Nestled as comfortable as swallows under the eaves.
“Scat!” he hollered.
The next morning there were two.
“You need to take a broom to them,” his wife said.
“A bullet,” his brother-in-law suggested.
But Pettyman was a reasonable man and stooped to the dreams’ level. “I got an empty attic. Lot nicer.”
The dreams shook what he took to be heads. The next morning there were thirty, and the next, a lot of squeezing and maneuvering. Impossible to count.
“You’re a fool,” said his wife. The car was half-hidden in the mounting snow..
“Told you so,” said her brother.
“I got a basement,” Pettyman told the dreams. “Dry and cool.”
When morning came around, those dreams were cheek by jowl. The garage door, once opened, could barely close.
“That many dreams can’t bring no good,” his brother-in-law said. “Watch the walls don’t fall.” He drove his sister home to their people.
Pettyman got to thinking. Why had the dreams chosen his garage and what did they intend to do? Were they dangerous?
He slept on those questions, and in the morning, when he went to check, he thought for a moment the dreams had fled. Good news for the car and him too for maybe his wife would change her mind. But the more he investigated, the farther along he went. The walls had indeed fallen, for the space inside was vast. He was sure every car, truck, and motorcyle in the world could fit. If not for the dreams.
He hurried back before he was lost, nailed the door shut, and begged his wife to return. The snow continued to fall, but by meeting each dawn with a shovel and salt, he avoided vexing her.
By the time the house passed to a daughter, the garage slumped dangerously to the left and a black tarp replaced the door. Her daughter and friends waited until no one was home to drag out a rusted grill and lawn chairs. They strung Christmas lights across the tarp and when night came, lit the grill with wood and gasoline. They counted a thousand new universes spit from its cracked bottom.
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