I snuck into a party where I was not invited. The host didn’t recognize me from a long list of non-invitees and handed me a doorknob as a party favor. There was a tree in the living room, a real live deciduous monster with floorboards carefully carved around the base of the trunk. People were eating its fruit. It was raining in the guest bedroom yet somehow partygoers remained unwet, the exact opposite of what was transpiring in an overcrowded bathroom. By the fireplace, I saw you petting a jaguar that yawned as if it were a lion, trying to coax my head inside it for applause. I heard people talking about the jaguar, but all I could focus on was how some people called it a jag-u-ar while others said jag-war and how we come to conclusions about people and their diction. It wasn’t quite love at first sight, but at the same time I could see you, the woman petting the yawning jaguar, as my wife spreading jam on toast in our future kitchen. I would’ve easily stuck my head inside that jaguar for your applause, for your immediate infatuation of my bravery. But I’m going to be honest – the music was off. There was an old Laura Branigan song playing and this wasn’t a Laura Branigan crowd, and it killed the mood. So I did the next obvious thing. I walked toward you with aforementioned bravery, put the doorknob in the jaguar’s mouth and turned it, walking right through the beast as if it were a secret door to a new dimension and exited the party. I looked back and saw your eyeball peeping me through a keyhole below the doorknob. I can’t recall if it was you or me flashing a finger with a ring on it, but we were both standing on opposite ends of an identical kitchen, you petting the jaguar you named Gloria at the after party. I woke up without a soundtrack in my head or doorknob in my hand. I noticed our hands clasped together and slightly bloodied from a jaguar at the foot of the bed, pawing at us and demanding to be pet.