The Renaissance

In his dream last night he was in a small room with Dante and Chaucer but couldn't understand a word either one of them was saying.

It wasn't that it was just a dream and that he wasn't there--both legendary writers looked him in the eye, tried to engage him as an equal--but he might as well not have been, there.  

He tried sign language, that didn't work, and then brought out the manuscript of the short story he'd been working on. He tried to explain--this is a story told from the point of view of a man who'd been raised by hippies--but it was useless, neither Chaucer or Dante could make sense of what he was saying.

Waking, recalling his dream in every detail, he compared his situation to a worker ant making a foray into the living quarters of the very wealthy, knowing he'd be found out and crushed sooner or later; then and only then could he become a true victim. 

Maybe in the afterlife, he thought, he'd be visited by all the animals he ever ate; and they'd only understand why he'd done what he'd done to them if he learned to speak their language.