You run with the possum in your pocket, which slows you down considerably. That little bugger, soft and cuddly as he is, has some fangs on him. You do a sort of jig through the underbrush You can hear the angry coots behind you crashing through the brambles. "The fire's hot kid. Never mind the possum, we're eatin' you!" You duck to the left along the edge of a ravine. You hear the coots go over the edge and plop into the river. Everybody knows that coots can't swim at night. They sink like stones to the bottom. Too bad for them, now their firepit will be yours. Along the way you go past the kind of menagerie that would bother you if you had time to think about it. You rush past a man with a bird on a string that is tied to his finger. You double back to ask him "How come?" He plucks at the string, an out of tune E, and says "So I can remember to feed him." "Feed him what?" "He likes dog food." You walk past a snake eating its own tail. You reach back to make sure your own tail is still there. Yep. Phew. You keep going. This dream is losing its logic faster than you can figure the reasons how. A bear on stilts comes hurrying along. You wave to him and he takes his paw off of his stilt to wave back. Oh shucks, he has lost his balance. He howls as he falls to the ground, just as you duck out of the way of his flying bulk. "Sorry," you say, trying to move along before he can get back onto the stilts to chase you down. Back at the fire, you stop to catch your breath. Hmm, fire. Possum. Leftover coot wine. Nobody to steal your possum meat. You look the possum in the eye. Surprisingly, he begins to speak. "Before the cock crows I shall betray thee thrice," he says, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight. "Huh?" There is something weird about this critter. "Nothing," he says. "I was just goofin'. You are the best Human ever. You are a better pet than the centipede I used to hang around with." A robed figure comes along and hands the possum a satchel of thirty pieces of silver. "Who was that?" you ask as the possum counts the silver pieces to make sure they are all there. "Just a passerby, I think," says the possum. "Close your eyes, you look weary. You should get some rest." You snuggle up tight with your little buddy and all is well. You have a pal for life. You wonder what adventures you might have tomorrow with your possum buddy. As you drift off into a deep sleep you are hardly aware of the gnawing sensation at your side. If you had your dream encyclopedia with you, you would be able to look up the fact that possums are notorious gourmands. Nocturnal feeders, these little guys can eat up to fourteen times their body weight in one sitting. You will not wake up from this dream, you have chosen this adventure to end in a grim, unsavory feast that goes backwards on your idea of how the food chain should work if things were up to you. Oh wait, things were up to you and you still got eaten up. You have sub-par skills at this, huh? THE END