A couple of weeks back a band manager approached me to do the album cover and publicity photography for a death metal band, which I was keen to do. This requires quite creative work and a lot of vision, conceptual design and planning.

A week later, a strange feeling came over me, and I experienced a very vivid vision (call it a day-mare) of one of the shoot scenes. In short someone tried to kill me, and the band members turned out to be zombies and not people at all. It turned into a bloody gun battle where I finally survived, but a new war began because the rest of the incredulous world wanted my head for killing "innocent" people.
I was shaking and feeling overwhelmed. Then I heard a dove cooing outside my window. It was the dove that had passed on the message to me. I had never thought of doves this way before, but suddenly it was absolutely clear that this was no ordinary dove. I had to act fast.

Immediately I called the band's manager and mumbled some lame excuse like "I'm not able to do the shoot anymore". I wanted to be more open, but was afraid that if I mentioned the details of the vision, they would all come after me because their cover had been blown.

Doves are multifaceted creatures. They are God's perfect protein pellet designed for the hard of hunting domestic kitttens. Their calls are a strong romantic symbol for me, reminding me of teenage love and relationships lost. And now they keep me on my toes in case another compelling vision is presented.

I used to be convinced that whoever tried to read my mind or put thoughts in it was up to evil, but now it seems I have some friends who use similar tactics.

Does anyone else have good watchers as well as mean ones?