I'm in a valley, on a path by a creek. A horde of girls, from toddlers to teens, start chasing me and throwing rocks and laughing and chanting the phrase that's followed my family all my life:

"LYIN' WAYAN,

LYIN' WAYAN,

LYIN' WAYAN!"

I haven't lied to them. I don't even KNOW them!

I flee down the path... at last I pause on a little wood bridge over the creek--but not long. They come at me from both ends of the bridge now! Trapped, I get so alarmed that for a moment, up feels like down.

And then my emotional upset turns physical--up swings round to BECOME down! Gravity twists, and like some auto-poltergeist it tosses me over the rail!

Splash into icy water. I'm floating, tumbling, in over my head! Much deeper and faster than I thought; the current pulls me down toward rocks.

The water's white with bubbles, I can't see. Can hear bigger rocks and rapids ahead. I'm bruising with each breath now, slamming between boulders.

And then I'm swept over the falls!

A six hundred foot drop.

My last thought, as I go over the lip, is "Getting upset KILLED me." Then the sheet of white water takes me--wait--COTTON sheets?

I wake in a tangle on my floor... Got so upset in my dream, I moved, rolled out of bed!

LATER THAT MORNING...

Funny. Those kids pronounced my family name in a way only my parents do. Not me or my sisters or aunts and uncles or grandparents--three or four branches each say it differently, but none like my parents. Yet all those kids used only my parents' distinctive version. Were they accusing me of lying? Or just of being from a line of liars? And if the dream means my parents have been lying... lying about WHAT?

If they have, it's been going on a long time--in the dream, I'd been hearing that mocking chant of "Lyin' Wayan" all my life.

MONTHS LATER

My parents (after much prodding) let slip a certain family secret they'd "forgotten" to tell me for decades. They say "We didn't think it was important." I'd merely BEGGED for the truth for years, since it haunted my whole childhood. Years of nightmares, phobias, therapy that got nowhere because I didn't have the basic facts.

But when they confess, years too late, I didn't hit the roof. I stayed calm, because I'd been warned:

Upset leadeth to a Fall.

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