"Would you think it'd be okay if our son grew up, and became a monk?"

"What?" Asked the man and frowned.

"You know, studied Buddhism and became a monk." Inquisitively asked the woman, with a twinkling of hope in her eyes. "Maybe went to a monastery."

"Well, I guess I'd be ok with him studying it, but becoming a monk? I don't know." The man looked at the TV and laughed at something.

"It's just that I've been having all those dreams about him, you know. Kind of... I don't know. And the psychic said " "

"The psychic? What are you on about? What psychic?" The man shifted his attention completely away from the television, and focused his judgmental gaze on the woman. "You're joking, right?"

"What? Why not? Maybe he'll want it."

"Yes, yes!" The man nodded his head in angry agreement. "If he wants it, he can be a monk, but I don't want him to become a monk. There's a big difference. I don't want to train him from birth in some religious ways. No. If he will really want it " he can be anything he wants. A monk? Maybe, if he wishes with his heart, but do I want it? No!"

"Just saying... I just have this feeling? Why not?"

"Why not? What is the difference between joining the army or a monastery? Soldier fights for the government and the monk sacrifices his life for god " both unreasonable, vague entities! Do you really want him to go off to a monastery and never see him again?"

"That's not what I meant. I just want him to study Buddhism, if he is ok."

"Study? Or what you really mean is that all those dreams and psychics have made up your mind, and you want our son to be a damn monk? Is that it? The problem is that you already have two children and you're all sorted, and this one with me is kind of like a bonus? So why not turn him into a monk? Is that it? It's good for you, but this is my only child, and you expect me to be happy with the idea that once he turns eighteen " he'll be off to pray for the rest of his life, and I'll never see him smile, frown, or even have a crap, ever again? No, that sounds horrible. Jesus that sounds horrible."

"Watch what you say." The woman replied coldly, as the comments about her previous kids hurt her.

"I know what I said." Said the man bitterly. "I am not drunk. I remember everything."

The woman turned away and got momentarily sad. The man stared at the TV and said nothing. They understood that they are a bit different. Was that difference enough to make them think about each other in a new sort of way? Was that difference enough to alter their future together dramatically? Would that difference impact their son's future? God, the questions are endless, but the sorrow is one. The sorrow of having to separate for the evening and sleep in their own spaces, beds, couches, floor, inside the refrigerator?

The woman laid down horizontally on the sofa and put her legs on the man's lap.

"Hug me." She said to him.

Women are sometimes smarter, and they know that it's not really necessary to argue and feel upset over things that will even out and be forgotten anyway. Men are stubborn, this one was no exception.

"Not yet. Give me five minutes." He said coldly, not touching her legs, but not pushing them off.

They watched the TV in silence for a few minutes, then the woman stood up, and busied herself with housework to prepare for the night. Took wet clothes out of the washing machine, and hung them out to dry, cleaned up what dishes there were in the sink, swept all the crumbs and bits of food off the table, and rinsed the rag.

That night they went to sleep in different places without saying a word to each other. Their son however, slept quietly in his crib, sometimes smiling, or frowning, at moments shaking his whole body in dreamy laughter. Infants see amazing things in their dreams " that's for sure. Lets face it " all of us saw those wonderful, harmless dreams when we were tiny, but as we grew, we've busied ourselves with becoming adults and perusing proper goals... and we forgot about being small.

As the baby slept and dreamed his dreams of red and yellow triangles, the adults bickered and quarreled, squashed their anger, then let it out, earned themselves wrinkles and cancers, and engaged in overall life degrading behavior.

Eh...