The Valkyrie
By AndrezdeTijuana


I awoke and glanced groggily about the room at surroundings utterly unfamiliar to 
me. At about the same time I wiped the web of sleep from my eyes, my sphere of 
waking consciousness was invaded by a feeling like I had been worked over with 
a two-by-four. I was flat on my back, still in my street clothes, in what appeared 
to be a single-wide day-bed in a rather elegant guest room or parlour.

I shook my head vigorously to purge that last grain of sand left behind by the 
Sandman so I could more coherently investigate my new surroundings. The walls 
were covered with framed pictures, both photographs and artwork; Classic old 
masters paintings (NO dogs playing poker or black-velvet paintings of Elvis 
Presley with throw-rug size sideburns eating a highball microphone here! No 
siree!) But rather, things like majestic galloping stallions with silky long manes 
flowing in the wind, sailing ships, ladies in horned helmets, and, aha! Something 
REALLY familiar; Female Bodybuilders, both cartoon caricatures and 
photographs (Where have I seen these before?)

I had absolutely no clue whatsoever *HOW* I got there or *WHY* I was there, 
but I did have a vague hunch of *WHERE* I was. On a whim, I pulled my 
AM/FM walkman radio out of my pocket and scanned the dial - NOTHING BUT 
BRITISH ACCENTS!!!

I had never set foot east of the Rio Grande in my entire life! What was going on 
here? Was I in a bad episode of the Twilight Zone? Did I wake up in a "parallel 
dimension"?

Then I heard the faint sound of a stereo playing in an adjacent room; traditional 
ragtime piano, a la Scott Joplin.
Then the distinctive clatter of dishes, silverware and running water. Somebody in 
a kitchen? Then an aristocratic British accent of a woman, "Ah! My little duck 
friends are taking their walk." The telephone rings..."Oh hi..I'm fine. I've got some 
gallery pics to put up today. Yes...The New York server is fine, so is the one in 
Washington. Sure...thanks for calling. Cheerio."

Some footsteps and a door slammed...these sounds were louder and closer. My 
heart raced a mile a minute! I was in a stark-raving shit-my-f***ing-drawers 
panic! I was looking for an escape route! I even considered for an instant jumping 
out the glass window, stuntman-style. For all I knew, somebody slipped me a 
Mickey Finn and put me there and this person in the other room... again...for all I 
knew, maybe was unaware that I was even in here at all! My hunch about the 
identity of this woman, whom I hadn't yet laid eyes upon, was stronger than ever 
but that was no consolation! It didn't help assuage my terror! How would she 
react to a strange intruder in her home?!

I instinctively dove under the bed and upset a lamp in the process. There was 
precious little clearance between the bed and floor. Just as I was almost home-
free, I felt a grip on my ankle like a 4-foot long pair of pliers, like those big tools 
the guys use on those oil rigs. This woman pulled me out from under the bed with 
the ease of a scared kitten being pulled from under the bed by the tail!

She flipped me over onto my back and standing over me was the intimidating 
form of a stockily-built 5'5" blonde woman with steely grey eyes. I'm not 
intimidated by stockily-built 5'5" women, generally, but this one was 
very..very..different. She had a sort of "presence". Don't ask me how - I can't put 
my finger on it. She certainly wasn't holding a great big cast iron gripping tool of 
any kind, though.

For two seconds she bore a hole through me with her steely grey eyes, but to me it 
seemed like a holy eternity. There seemed to be a hiccup in the time-continuum to 
where the high-pitched keyboard notes of the Scott Joplin piece playing in the 
other room sounded as slow and deep as the chimes of Big Ben. Then it 
happened...I started to drift out of the top of my own head and towards the ceiling 
and looked down on a guy on the floor and a woman standing over him! I only 
read about these things up til now but it was happening - I was having a goddam 
out-of-body experience! I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to return to my flesh 
and my soul would end up in some garage in Buffalo, New York! (That what the 
Right Reverend Brother George Carlin says will happen to our souls! Right?)

Then the surreal kink in time was broken when this awesome woman cracked a 
smile and chuckled, "What were you going to do under the bed, Andy?"

My consciousness was quickly shunted back into my body and I breathed a sigh 
of relief but was still too shaken to put two coherent words together, 
"I...ahhh...(gulp)...welllll..ah"

She interrupted, "You were out for ten hours, bloke. I'm fixing breakfast. Would 
you care for a spot of tea? I'll take you on a tour of the city later. I've got a 
convertible Morgan."

She reached down to help me up from the floor by my hand. She obviously wasn't 
gripping with all of her might, but it felt like the grip of the "Terminator" - a thin 
layer of human skin covering titanium "bones".

I still didn't know WHY I was there or HOW I got there but it became very clear 
to me who this mysterious woman was - the sublime Valkyrie! The wonderful 
Diana! 

Then I woke up - FOR REAL - in my own bed - in VERY familiar surroundings!

God, reality bites!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AdT:)