'14 January 2010'

Sometimes nothing makes sense in retrospect when I awake and my eyes are open again to the real world's light. It is as if the mind would pick randomly at any detail and incorporate it into the dream. A confusing tapestry that just flows with its own sense of reasoning.

I dream of a hospital hall with many beds lined up beside each other. I dream that my father is in one of the beds--his deathbed, lapsed in a coma while my mother is trying to find out his Chinese zodiac animal. And because it is not something that I know the answer to, my mother (who is as ignorant as me in the dream) becomes a seeress of sorts, tries to find clues by spilling the contents of vases that are on patients' tables to read how the water flows, how the flowers fall. She turns the hall upside down as she goes from one end to the other. Patients sit up with frightened and worried expressions on their faces. But I am as far away and detached as a camera, documenting the events.

When she is done, she stands before my father and says, "He is a Dragon."

It is then that I know why this piece of information is so important.

It's for his death certificate.