A tree and a song

One tree on the edge of a field, it's branches spreading wide and tall, each branch carefully trimmed off on the ends, manecured to perfection. White bark like a birch tree and medium sized green leaves like a ficus, but this kind of tree is special, because in the hands of a true artist, and if trimmed well, then the wind as it flows throw the tree creates music, a melodic tinkling of sound that is unique to each tree and each artist. Now imagine a glade of these trees, each one sounding slightly different, each one trimmed to be in harmony with it's neighbors, the mind processing each sound as complimentary to the others, similar but just a shade different, as if a gentle kaleidescope of soft pastels on the edge of an endless sea of wheat colored grass. This is the dream I had.

The Long Road Home

I was on the train, my stuff all layed out in front of me on the table, when someone told me it was only a short distance before I needed to get off and make the connection to the last leg of the journey. I felt a bit panicky as I scrambled to get everything organized. If I didn't hurry, I would miss the connection! I remember struggling to concentrate so I could get it all back in order quickly. Then there was a brief pause. And then I woke up.

I have had these kinds of dreams innumberable times just before I wake in the morning. This morning, I dreamt I was on a train. But usually, I am either on a bus or rushing to jump onto one. Almost always, there is an issue of complex interchanges and connections that are easily missed and require considerable concentration. I worry that either my timing does not match the bus schedule, or the bus will not deposit me where I want to go. Or I fear I will become lost. Sometimes, I even pull out a map that shows pathways so complex that I would not be able to understand them in waking life.

The worst is if I am actually the one driving, because the car invariably moves me at insane speeds around sharp corners and strangely the spongy brake peddle barely works and the gas peddle seems stuck on 'too fast!' Add to that the fact that I can barely see the road ahead of me and I am surrounded by other cars! Then my main concern is just trying to stay on the road.

No matter which mode of transport, typically I am feeling nervous about making a mistake and thinking that I only have to catch one more connection, and then the next thing I know, I become conscious of lieing in my bed. Who would have thought it would be so complicated just to wake up!

The Gods Must be Crazy

We were gods, glorious and divine. I flew through space and time, my long lithe body gliding between my huge long white wings, my grace and elegance unfathomable. Of course, the wings and my appearance where just an icon, a symbol of my truth, an image that some people saw of me, but it wasn't really what I was. Because I was a God.

Often, I spent time with other Gods, socializing and talking about various interesting aspects of reality and other Godlike things. One God in particular stayed in my mind. He was always bragging about his skills, or so it seemed to me, and it galled me to know that he had many skills and areas of knowledge that I did not have.

I tried to ignore him but one time he began talking about how he could create things from his own body. I did not want to hear about it but he was soon bulging his mighty muscles and I was unpleasantly surprised to see his muscles quickly grew one on top of another, making something where once there was nothing. He made a kind of reality or material from his body that was now a reality unto itself, a truly divine creation and I had no idea how he accomplished that.

I was infuriated by his creation, but I knew I was not as powerful as him and could not challenge him or his creation without being humiliated in loss. However, I was a crafty creature, more so than most other Gods, and now I put that skill to use. I realized that if I took myself far away and then set in motion a series of events in other realities that would snowball into a huge force before they were noticed and before they reached the newly created reality, in this way, I could use my power to destroy that which the other God had created. The other God would not be able to stop the force of the attack by the time he realized what was happening, because the power of the assault would have already magnified a hundred fold over what I had started.

I was thrilled and excited by my brilliance and quickly set the plan in motion. I went to the far away place where no one would ever think to look for me and with a great surge of power and glory, I put forth a series of events that defy description for anyone other than a God. Then I waited eagerly for the outcome.

But it all went horribly wrong. The other God had not done as expected. He had not accepted my brilliant victory. Instead he stood before my attack and took the full brunt, even knowing he would fail. And now he must surely be crushed!

In horror, I raced back through the realities to investigate. For a fraction of an instant, I saw myself as the blindly jealous and lowly creature that I was for having done such a thing, but then I was back to thinking like a God. After all Gods play all the time. What I had done was nothing unusual for our society. I was merely existing according to my nature.

Coming closer to the scene of the attack, I was somewhat relieved to find that the other God was diminished greatly but not destroyed, just in a sort of limbo from the damage done to him. I was saddened by his plight and simply could not understand why he had stood his ground for a mere creation and for those creatures that lived there. Why had he not done the logical thing and stood aside? Why did he care so much about that reality that he would risk his own destruction? The concept was beyond me.

And now he would lay in a near calcified state, nearly immobile through magnitudes of time so long that most of the other Gods would no longer remember him once he rose again. And even in his defeat, he had managed to take the joy of victory from me. I decided I would now fly on to other things and endeavors. This particular game was over and had not been fun at all.

Red Fear

I came into the room to assasinate him. Or should I say 'it.' Gender did not seem relevant but for the sake of discussion, I will call it a 'him.' He was a huge shaggy creature, maybe 10 feet high and lengthwise even bigger, shaped roughly like an elephant but with copious amounts of long wavy reddish fur all over, he stood on all fours with the head and elephantine trunk in the front. THe fur was so thick and fluffy that other anatomic details were obscured.

The creature was relaxed when I came in. My intentions did not seem of concern. Indeed, although I should have struck immediately, instead I dithered and began speaking with the creature. Soon, my intentions wavered. I didn't know why, but I knew I would not kill him. Dimly, I realized the creature was controlling my mind in some way. He took his long trunk and rubbed it gently on my back. The trunk was covered in the red fur but large black hard bumps stuck out from the wavy strands. Vaguely, I knew I had already lost. I was under its control.

The creature allowed me to live in his byzantine dimly lit underground facility. Level upon level of rooms and corridors were present and I was only familiar with a few. Most of the time, I was alone and rarely did I see any of my own kind or even anyone at all. SOmetimes, to keep myself entertained, I went into a large rectangular room made of a clear substance like glass that glowed a frosty white against the darkness of the rest of the facility. THere, I played a form of solo handball against the walls. I felt privileged to be so trusted by the creature.

Another time, visitors came to the facility. They were humans of my own kind and I let them in to visit, but in the back of my mind, I wondered if the creature would be unhappy with me.

It was not long after that I was riding an elevator up to another level and the doors opened out to a floor I had not intended. In the halls of this level, frightened humans huddled. I knew that my coming to this location was the will of the creature so I stepped out into the hall and allowed the elevator doors to close behind me. There was no going back.

I soon saw why the humans were frightened. THings were crawling at the edge of vision. THings skittered out from behind panels in the walls and then disappeared just as fast. They were behind us, in front of us, and in the walls and ceilings. My mind struggled to process them and sometimes I saw them as flattened deflated humans that scrabbled on all fours, but that was probably just an illusion. I didn't know what they were, but I knew they were fast moving, difficult to see, and intent on killing us.

I knew this challenge was set to me by the red shaggy creature, but I was sad to think that most if not all of the humans around me, untrained and ill prepared, would likely die, and even my own life was in grave danger. There was a good change that even with all my skill, I myself might not pass this test. And I accepted that.

End dream.

Mental Winds

Two nights ago, I lay down to sleep and drifted off to blackness. Then I felt a huge wind blast through me. It felt as if it was not only physical but also mental, as if it blew through my mind going from right to left quickly. In retrospect, I heard no movement of any items in the room, so most likely it was only the perception of a wind through some of my senses. But I did hear the sound of the wind itself, first in the right ear and then in the left. I can't decide if I thought it was somehow alive or not. My mind cannot classify the feeling. But it startled me wide awake in an instant. I lay listening for some time and then chalked it off as yet another one of those weird things and then I went back to sleep.

I did not think of it again, until shortly after falling asleep the next night. When it happened again. This time for some reason, I was even more unnerved by it. It felt exactly the same, going from right to left as if a great wind passed through my spirit. Could it be a ghost? I lay away for quite some time until my nerves settled and I finally fell asleep again.

I wonder if it will happen again tonight.

Song of the Past

I looked at my long blonde hair. Somehow I could see how it looked behind my back, from an angle which my real eyes could never see, and I was admiring it. Briefly, I wondered when it had gotten so long. Didn't I used to have shorter hair? Nah, of course it has always been long and lush like that. What was I thinking to consider otherwise!

We were on the road driving this big truck. In the background, someone was telling me all kinds of facts about trucking in California and how various roads were originally constructed for various purposes like to get fruit to the railroad where it could be shipped. I was told how some kinds of produce had amusing nicknames that made their way into the names of streets.

In the background, I could also hear a country and western song playing. The man who sang it had a beautiful melodious voice and the song was somewhat related to our subject of conversation. I remember the last line which went, "Whatcha gotta do is come down to that little torn up town!" and then the song ended and I instantly snapped awake.

I was left wondering where that song had come from. I can't recall ever having heard such a song and nothing comes up on a google search for the words in the last line, but it's amazing to even consider that my subconscious could have invented a whole song like that on the fly.

The Elevators

Tension consumed me. I must not make a mistake or even waver. If I did, everyone would notice. Everyone knew were to go and I must know as well. Up to room seven hundred something or maybe it was eight or nine? The number was fleeting in my mind and I struggled to grasp on to it more clearly. Into one of the millions of elevators I went, still unsure, still hoping I had chosen wisely. The numbers seemed right, the flow was acceptable, and so I had hope I had chosen correctly. One other was in the elevator beside me and she did not appear alarmed so things seemed to be going well. Like all of us, she was very tall and thin and wore loose clothing with vertical panels of various shades of brown and tan. As was expected, she completely ignored me and did not speak.

Finally, the elevator opened at the same time as dozens of other elevator doors on this floor and people simultaneously poured out into the hall and dodged around each other to reach their locations. I felt I was near, very near, and then one of the rooms felt right and I scurried in. I had found the right room with the right number. No one else was in the room, just a table and a few chairs, all carpeted like the floors and walls in subtle shades of brown with hints of mauve. My tension ebbed substantially. The hardest part was over. Now I could start my work day which involved some kind of relaxed concentration.

At the end of the day, after exactly half the time of our planet's day/night cycle, my shift came to an end and the choreographed dash would repeat itself in reverse, but this time with slightly less tension on my part. Now I would take the route back to my room and I was more familiar with that route. I was less likely to make a mistake. Surely, I could find my own room! I concentrated. What was the number? 168 I think it is. And eventually, I was back. Inside were three of the long rectangular carpeted tables that in this room served as beds. Mine was nearest the window. I did not speak to the others of my room. It would not have been polite. Instead, I gazed out our window at the monstrous sparkling rectangular skyscrapers around us, all that was visible against the grey blue sky.

In the morning, the cycle would repeat, except I had been sitting on my bed day dreaming when the other two of my room left. I hadn't noticed as they passed the others in the hall. Now the lead person of the others was in my room and staring at me in shock. I had not passed them in the hall as I should. I was still here in the room. I had committed a monstrous faux paus. Now standing in front of me, he said, "I will chase you out of here," as which point my attention snapped back and fear coursed through me. I jumped up and ran out of the room.

But it was too late, the damage had already been done. I realized when he said he would chase me out, he meant permanently. And now I was out of sync with my tasks. I struggled to remember my destination but the number would not become clear to me. I passed through halls and into an elevator but then sensed the disturbance of those around me. The flow was not right. I was making the numbers unbalanced. I felt hopeless and scared but did my best to look calm and under control at all times just as society dictated.

Briefly, I considered offering to do a favor for the one who was angry at me, but then I looked at my records. How had I let it get so bad? I realized on my record labeled 168, I had countless transgressions stacked up on the top denoted by rectangles and squares of various sizes and bright garish colors, blue, green, orange, yellow. Another favor would mean yet another transgression and I simply could not afford that. And now I was hopelessly out of sync and could not find my room. The halls around me were empty. Everyone had found their place except me.

My life was over.

Suddenly, I got the idea that I would go to the top, to the special floors on the top. No one had ever been there that I knew of and I had no idea what I would find there. But it seemed the only thing to do. I got onto the elevator and signaled to go to the top section. An overseer behind a small desk in the hall was surprised by my choice and looked up inquiringly. I held myself proudly and told her with a confidence that I did not feel that, "I am going to the top." It was the ultimate act of arrogance that I had now embarked. No one ever went to the top!

To my surprise, the overseer spoke to me again, even though etiquette did not allow for such unnecessary chatter. She muttered low, probably so others would not hear her inappropriate talk, and she mumbled words of encouragement and consolation! What things to say! I was not sure how to respond to such strange statements so I ignored her. What did she mean by that anyway? Not only were they unnecessary statements but such strange ones at that! I turned my mind to what I might find above me.

And then the dream ended.

You are All Evil

I approach the woman behind the counter and she says to me, "Oh I know you! You are evil!"

I am surprised. "What?" I say, as confusion mixes with slowly kindling anger at this insult.

"You are evil and so is your whole group." she says, "That's what they told me. Everyone knows that." And then she stands there watching me as placidly as a glacier in a gentle snow fall.

Vaguely, I am aware of several others who have come in with me and now stand around me and I wonder if perhaps those are the group members she refers to as also being evil. Anger gives way to confusion as I consider this statement. Am I evil? I don't think I ever considered it. So I look inward now at my strengths and weaknesses, at my faults and at my frailties. But no, I am relatively sure I am not evil, certainly not perfect but I think still far from evil. "I think you have gotten some wrong information." I tell her calmly. Too bad she can't look into my mind and see for herself, I think to myself.

The woman continues to regard me for a few moments and then another woman walks up behind her with a huge box in her hands. The two woman hold the box out and offer it to me over the counter, but I am reluctant to take it, as if the perception of greed might only worsen my supposedly already existing reputation of being evil.

But they insist the box is a free and kind gift so I step forward and look warily inside the big box to see a swirly white material on the bottom as if decorative cake topping had been applied directly to the bottom of the box. Colors swirled in on one end of the box make an obscure pattern and I wonder at the nature of the gift.

The women continue to assure me it is a free gift and so, wondering if it will be heavy, I finally reach out to take the box. Then I wake up.

Dream Lover

Around us is a dorm like environment. We are sitting in this room chatting about this and that. Suddenly, he reaches his hand across to me and begins stroking the bare skin on my outer forearm with the backs of his knuckles. I am surprised because I had not perceived our talk as having been flirtatious. But I decide I like the feeling of his touch and so do not protest. I am in the middle of making a point when he starts and the touch makes me lose my train of thought and stumble in my words, but then I concentrate and continue talking as he continues to stroke my arm.

Later I must have fallen asleep on this small bed or couch. He has snuggled down near my knees in front of me with his back to me and I find this pleasant. Carefully, so as not to disturb him, I flick the end of my blanket so as to cover him better and then I look at his face. He has a slightly long and hooked nose and slight jutting chin with thick black hair, strong eyebrows and bright brown eyes, a European reasonably handsome look, different from my usual type but still quite acceptable. Then I go back to sleep.

I dream that two people are standing above me talking about asthma. One is male and one is female. The table I lay on is like an operating room table of sorts and they stand above me while they work. There are complex instruments set up around my body and the conversation between the two doctors has turned almost angry as they disagree on treatment theories. I remember the woman snapped at the man, "Well you can't even GET any data unless you choose a medication and administer it in the first place!" She seemed to be responding to some kind of statements on his part about the downsides of medications.

A short while later, I wake up slightly and I feel the man sleeping near me also stir from his sleep and slowly withdraw his hand from between my hands as if in an attempt not to disturb me. I had not realized I had taken his hand but now that he is pulling it out, I realize I must have. I do not move and pretend to still be asleep but in my mind I worry. Did I go too fast? Has he changed his mind? But then I tell myself my behavior was a reasonable response to his and so I can not blame myself.

He has withdrawn his hand now and I can feel a jostling as he moves on the bed. Is he trying to sneak off? I hope not and wait to see what he will do next. I hope that he is not leaving.

Then I remember I am in my room in California and the jostling stops and I realize the man must leave because he was never there in the first place. He is gone. I am alone in my bed just as I was when I went to sleep the night before. Or was it me that left him? It's hard to sort out my emotions. I miss the nameless man of the dream. Usually, I do not see faces in my dreams but even now, his face is still clear in my mind. I will have to remember this dream for the blog..

(PS, yes I do have asthma in my waking life)

The Russian Psychic

I was what you might call an idiot savant. My mind did not work like the others. It was deficient in some areas, but brilliant in others. They kept me here in the this insane asylum, but I was not part of the general population. Still, I liked to lounge in the hall near a small planted area and watch as the insane people passed by. One of them did not like me and on this one day, he decided to challenge me with rude words. I knew I could easily crush him with my strength. My huge male body was naturally strong and bearlike compared to this thin little spastic man. I knew I should ignore him, but today he had hurt my pride and I got up and spoke words back to him. Suddenly, he jumped on me attacking and biting. But I did not want to fight him.

Guards sprang into action and pulled him off and no one was seriously hurt, but from that day forth, I was banned from that area of the ward. I was too valuable for my life to be risked in that way and so I was disconsolate. I knew in my heart that the incident was my fault. The crazy man had sensed my pride and that had triggered his attack. I could not blame him as he was crazy, after all, and I was not like him. I knew better. If I had controlled my pride, it would not have happened. Now I was no longer allowed to go to the only place I liked, the only place where life throbbed around me. I was disconsolate.

The officials were concerned about my sadness and so they prepared a special room for me to try to make me feel better. The room had many tables and small machines and some tapestries and a nice new expensive grey carpet. They presented it to me with great fanfare, but to me it was dark and dead. Lifeless. I hated the room and continued to be disconsolate.

At times, me and others were expected to gather in the room together. The others were psychics, specially trained and regularly practicing their skills. They were proud of what they did and often spoke of it. I was glad they had this important job and they did seem to like what they did, but I did not consider myself one of them. I did not understand their training and I did not speak with them about what it was like to have this job called 'psychic.' They were different than me, of that I was sure.

We spent most of our time in the building that contained the insane asylum but once in a while, they would take me out in a car, late at night, to visit someone or do something. The streets would be deserted and dead around me as we usually traveled at weird hours. I remember when I would return from these trips, I could see the outside of the facility. It was only about two stories tall and reminded me of a 70s style movie theatre with swooping stylish curves. It seemed an unlikely place for a secret government psychic program.

One time, I was taken to a large factory with many long work tables and workers milling around working hard, and a woman that was one of my overseers led me to a table with some machine parts on it. One was a canister shaped piece of metal and she asked me to pick it up and hold it in my hands. As I held it, I said, "Falls apart after 300 tries." I would say these things with little understanding of how or why. They would just sort of spill out of my mouth unbidden. I didn't even understand what they meant, but the woman was angry now, not at me but at someone else. She snarled to the man near her, "We are NOT buying them! Did you think you could fool me?" And then she led me out. My task was over already. I was glad because I did not like the feeling of anger and tension in that place.

Occasionally, I would linger by a back door in the facility above the insane asylum. I could feel with my mind that the burning life giving sun was behind that door. The door was locked, but I knew I could easily escape if I felt like it. They could not hold me against my will and often I dreamed of being in the outside. But always, I decided against it. They would hunt me and track me and I would have no kind of good life. I would not have food and I did not have the skills to survive on my own out there. I knew I would not succeed. So I allowed them to think they contained me, that they held me captive, and I stayed in their facility, even though I often did not like it.

One day, I was doing something else when something caught at my my mind and I came running as fast as I could towards that door. The door was open and my friend was leaving, the only friend that I really cared about and that really cared for me. I ran through the open door and screamed "Natasha! Natasha!" as anguish oozed from every pore of my soul. How could she leave me!

She was walking away rapidly. They had thought they could have her sneak out but of course I knew. She turned now and looked genuinely sad in her tight grey skirt suit and beautiful blond hair, as she told me in a pinched voice that she would return later. But I knew she was only saying that. In truth she had little knowledge of her future assignments. I might not ever see her again. The sadness overwhelmed me.

End dream.

Changing the Old Programs

I looked at the brain in front of me, not literally at it, but at a conceptualization of it, as if it were a whole item, not split in hemispheres, and not in its real physical shape but as an idea. To me, it seemed more like a dark grey half sphere resting on its flat side, an intact package containing innumerable programs, similar to computer programs. Some of these programs were big but so many of them were very tiny swirls and they all interacted to create the whole package. What we were doing was changing all of the programs, every one. It was our mission. All of them would change. I felt confident about that.

Fractionally my thoughts shifted and I remembered we were not changing all of the programs, we were only changing all of the OLD programs. We could not change the new programs, only the old. The programs that were intermediate in age would be effected in some intermediate way but exactly how didn’t seem important to me now. Minor details! What mattered was the old programs would all be changed and the new programs would not. The rest would sort itself out.

My perspective shifted again and the brain was all around me now. I was using it, thinking with it. I noticed it felt the same as it always did. My thoughts and consciousness still felt the same. I wondered if perhaps that was because I was in the part that was new programs that had not been changed.

I felt myself traveling upwards towards wakefulness and shortly after one last big shift, I was there in my bedroom awake and pondering the strange dream. I would have to write this down surely, I was thinking, but soon I was drifting off again, only to be woken again rudely by the sound of someone pounding vociferously on some sheets of plywood. Except I realized there was no plywood. The sound and the plywood were all in my mind and I had a strong feeling it was an effort by my mind to convince me to wake up and remember the dream about my brain. It was important somehow.

Eventually I drifted off again anyway but did manage to suddenly remember the dream halfway through the next waking day. Maybe the plywood interruption was just enough to do the job.

I have felt a bit strange lately. I wonder if my old programs really are changing.

Flood

For some reason, my dreams have been dark of late:

I was walking down a wide dirt road with a friend. We were relieved to see we were coming up on a restaurant constructed of old wood slats. The place was busy with customers and activity. My friend said he needed to go do something and he would catch up with me shortly. He went to the left and I went into the front door on the right.

The place was bustling inside with a classic western motif and what looked like cement floors. The people around me were mostly dressed in dusty brown colored clothes as if from an older era. I sidled up to the bar and ordered some food before involving myself in small talk with some of the locals around the pool table. Eventually, I realized my food was long overdue and made my way back to the kitchen area to find out the only cook, with a pot belly and all dressed in white, was on break. He apologized for the delay and asked if he could just have 10 minutes to eat something himself and then he would start right away on my food. He looked exhausted and in much need of rest so I took the news cheerfully.

Here it gets a bit blurry. I remembered it all clearly at one time but now it is fading. But I know I was called away for some reason. I left the building and went to speak with some people that were some kind of news organization. I remember seeing various scenes of confusion and fear. One scene I remember clearly was a man on a horse with muddy water coming up almost to the horse's back. The man was trying to get the horse to move forward by clamping his legs together repeatedly but the horse would only make as if to move but then balk. I had the impression the horse was exhausted. Around him, other people were moving around in the water, some on make shift rafts, others half swimming or slogging through on higher ground. Everyone was too busy to help the man with the horse.

Then I came back to the restaurant. Some time had passed and the ambiance had changed drastically. I could hear an angry black man's voice demanding that someone get those people out of his restaurant, that they had destroyed it, etc. He sounded almost irrational and used a variety of epithets.

I walked through the same front door I had entered earlier and the view was shocking. The entire interior was now covered up to about 7 feet high with a dark grey colored mud, the walls, the furniture, everything. A few people walked around listlessly with heads down in despair. Slung high over a tall rack were 6 dead adults, each completely covered in the dark steely mud. Several other dead people were slung over some of the other furniture, all bent at the stomach with arms and legs dangling down towards the floor. The shock of the sight woke me with a start.

To Track a Killer

I dreamt of an old fashioned house with low ceilings and wood floors. The rust colored window drapes were drawn, blocking the harsh sun from penetrating the cluttered gloom within the house. The house was a confusing mix of chaos and organization. Here, piles of clothes on a shelf in a closet with small tools and iron files resting on top. There in that drawer, 20 plus light bulbs sheathed in their yellowing cardboard protective containers, all lined up and snuggled perfectly in their place, enough to last for 20 years in this gloomy darkened old house. I wondered if having large supplies of these household items somehow gave him a feeling of comfort and stability. I noticed that the equipment for his crimes was found in 3 different rooms of the house and no attempts were made to hide them. Some things in the house were meticulously kept while other things were flung haphazardly or lain out carefully but in unusual places or configurations. The house was like his life.

This was the house of a killer. My friends and I had tracked him, chased him and hunted him down. A thrill of excitement ran through me. No one would ever know how much horror we had prevented. We would probably never get credit, but I would know. I would never forget the excitement of the hunt and the thrill of success. And I would never forget the horror. This was the house of John Wayne Gacy.

[After I woke up in the morning, I recalled hearing this name before and so I googled it. John Wayne Gacy was a famous serial killer in Chicago.]

The Concept of Lieing

In some kind of dream, I was trying to explain to someone about what it was to tell a lie. The other person was confused at first but then I felt a sensation of excitement and she said she thought she understood. She said, "So it's like when someone says they are going to do something and then they don't do it." I said no, that's not exactly right but it seemed that was as close as she could come to understanding. I had the sense that we were communicating telepathically and because she was telepathic, she was unable to fully conceptualize the idea of lieing. It was too alien to her.

The Tips are Where It's At

I was telling the man that I didn't think he should be doing this kind of job, hanging around with these kinds of people. He was a tall lanky Polish looking caucasian, with short cropped hair and a slight but perpetual forward stoop, as if it his head was too heavy for his body and was continually overbalancing him. Even now as he stood talking to me, he looked down at the pavement.

"I have to do it because tips are where it's at," he said to me. "Tips are were all the money is. Without tips there's nothing really. You got nothing. So I have to do it this way," he said with a sort of dejected defiance.

I looked around at all the widely spaced cars spread out on the pavement. Here, space was plentiful and cheap. No need to be frugal with space. In the dark night, I couldn't see much beyond the pavement platter of cars, but I had the feeling that south western style desert surrounded us with sand, cactus, and the occasional outcrop of weathered sandstone. Above me towered a covered carport type of construction, similar to those you find at gas stations. Several flood lights were strung on its edges, attracting clouds of whining insects.

A cluster of men were assembled around one of the cars. Sniggering and drinking, they lounged against the car or the carport, some of them staggering at times to keep upright. They were a surly bunch. Disagreements flared up regularly intermixed with ringing raucous laughter.

Eventually, one of the men threw a shot glass at another's feet and exploding glass shards sparkled in the reflected light. Angry and confused, the victem threw his own glass at the car. Just then, the man I had been talking with earlier stalked into the middle of the group and demanded to know what was they were doing to his car. Behind him, one of the drunk men calmly picked up a long handled axe and expertly swung it over his head and struck down with a sick thunking noise directly onto the back of the car owner's neck.

The scene changed. It was daytime now as I gazed on a small house with a peaked tar gravel roof. Near the chimney, a man cowered on this roof, attempting to hide. The cops had already seen him be he pretended not to hear their shouts to come down. Eventually, they put ladders on the side of the red wood house and reached up to the man's leg and pulled him down.

He did not resist. In fact, he relaxed. The chase was over and there was something he wanted to say. "It was Wayne SoandSo (I forget the actual last name he used)," he said without any prompting. He had wanted to say it all along but he hadn't wanted to get himself implicated. But now that he was already caught, he could finally get it off his chest with confidence. He wanted the real murderer to be known. Everyone knew Wayne anyway and nobody was surprised. He would be easy to find. The only question was, would the charges stick?

Fighting 'the Field'

I was following my partner. From behind, I could see he had somewhat short tussled dark brown hair and medium of height and wiry of build. He was wearing one of those long black trench coats that splits high along the back. He was very much a stereotype. I was just 'me.' I don't know who I was.

In front of us was a deep chasm similar to how subway tracks are dipped down lower so that the train door will be at ground level for passengers, except this chasm was narrower and much deeper. We were running on tile and I could see the tile continued down onto the vertical walls of the chasm but I was too busy to think much about it. We were in a hurry.

My partner jumped over the chasm, his trench coat flailing out to the sides as he did so, and then he headed to the right. I jumped over behind him and headed to the left. About 5 feet past the chasm was a structure of rough grey stone sides and glass panel windows that we wanted to enter. I had the feeling it was unoccupied for now but still might have security systems in place. I quickly found a large doorway similar to large doorways in a large store at a mall. It was made of glass but each time I made to approach it, giant metal gates or cogs would move and block my way. The metal pieces had varying shapes and would fit into each other in varying ways, each time different. For each configuration, gaps existed between the metal parts that a person could theoretically fit through, but approaching the gaps resulted in movement of the metal pieces. I had the feeling it was a giant moving puzzle that would most likely crush me if I tried to get past.

I decided to run back to the right side of the building to see if my partner was having better luck and quickly found a more ordinary metal door that was swung open and looked to have been bent and damaged. It was hanging akimbo. I ran in after my partner.

Inide was like a large mall store with tiled hall passages and metal shelves of things. But there were also these 2 foot long light green blobs on the floor that appeared as a cross between frogs and light green crumpet puff balls. Each one had a big blog in the middle and the 'legs' consisted of smalling blobs. I had the feeling they were alive in some simple way and also dangerous, although they were slow moving. The creatures looked surreal and cartoonish as if my mind was having trouble processing their appearance in a way I could understand. But I knew we had to act quickly.

My partner had some kind of machine that he wanted me to help him with. As I approached, I realized the machine would be hard to control, similar to how a fireman has trouble controling the end of a giant powerful water hose. But my partner now had a firm grip on the nozzle/gun end and seemed to know what he was doing. The gun thing was made of complex metal pieces with a stiff nozzle of metal the size of a small tank gun. He indicated I would need to stand right in front of him, with both of us holding the nozzle at waist height and me in the forward attacking position. I did what he said without question.

The gun/hose machine started up. I am not sure what it was doing, but I felt a huge surge of energy rushing constantly through me, so strong I could barely tolerate it at first, but I seemed to adapt slightly as the process went on. Or at least it seemed less painful. I had the impression I was simply adapting to the pain but it was still just as powerful.

With the operation of the machine was a very loud noise that was like a cross between the sound of a giant angry bee and the sound of a dental drill cutting into a tooth. The sound pulsed like an engine rapidly turning over and would rise up to an earsplitting violent crescendo and then cycle back down to a slightly quieter less rapid noise pulse. I could not decipher if it was actually me or if it was the machine that was making this noise as we worked. I had the impression that perhaps it was really both of us but especially me and that the sound/energy of it was important to the process. These cycles of louder and quieter buzzing noises repeated a number of times until at last we were done. There were no more of the puffy frog blobs and the energy stopped coursing through me. I relaxed a little.

I remember my partner was now telling me something and then with a start, I woke up in my bed with my heart pounding. My body felt warm as if with a slight fever and my legs ached as if from down in the marrow. I thought about the dream and managed to recall the last words my dream partner had said to me. I was sure I would not forget but I forced myself to find a piece of paper and a pen to write down his words anyway. The heat in my body and the discomfort in my legs continued for quite some time and although I felt very tired, it was several hours before I could get back to a decent level of sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, the pain and heat were gone from my body, and I had forgotten what my partner had said to me in the dream. I reached over for the scrap of paper on the nightstand. On the paper, I had written that the frog puffs were an 'equation resistance field.'

But what the heck is that!?!

Strange Sound (a story from waking life)

Today I feel like writing about some things that once happened in my real waking life. In between vast swaths of normality, I also have a few interesting memories of weird events. One is from my early childhood.

I remember in the first house I lived in, I would often hear a weird noise as I lay in my bed. The sound reminded me of what it would sound like if large rocks were slowly being tumbled in a dryer, like rocks that would slide along for a bit on metal, then get jumbled up, and then all tumble over the top of each other at once, and then slide along somemore. I often thought the sound came from inside one of the walls of my room, but when I tried to really localize the source of the sound, it always seemed to move and become illusive. I rationalized that the sound must be from pipes or some kind of machinery in the house, but often the sound made me nervous and scared. It was creepy!

When I was about 7 years old, we moved to another house that was nearby. I was surprised to discover the sound was also present in my room at the new house. I noticed it often when it was quiet at night, but not always. Sometimes it would stop and start. Again, is was impossible to really localize the sound but even so, I rationalized that it must come from a hot water heater in a wall adjacent to my room. I told myself probably the previous house also had a hot water heater and that is why both houses had the same noise. Although it confused me that I could also sometimes hear the sound just as loud in the daytime in other areas of the house far from the hotwater heater. I remember sitting in the living room as a child, drawing or playing quietly, and sometimes hearing the sound and wondering about it and trying to localize it but being unable to do so.

In about 3rd grade, I visited a friend some miles away and slept over at her house. That night, I was surprised to start hearing the sound at her house as well. I mentioned the sound to my friend and she became excited, saying she could hear it as well but when she had asked other members of her family, none of them could hear it at all.

That night, we took turns comparing notes about when the sound started and stopped and we always agreed. Whatever it was, we both heard it stop and start at the same times and our descriptions of how it sounded also matched. We also discussed how she could also hear it in other parts of the house but also could not localize it. Indeed on other visits to her house, both sleeping over or visiting in the daytime, I heard the sound on occasion in various areas of her house and also still could not localize its source. The two of us always agreed on the sound and she was very excited that I could hear it as well. She told me that she had made a big point of telling her brother that I could hear it as well, thus proving the sound was real and she was not crazy. She made a point of having me tell this to her brother personally so he would believe her. But her brother seemed unimpressed by this news.

I remember another time later when the hot water heater at our house sprung a leak and a repairman came over to install a new one. I was surprised to see the hot water heater was in a very different part of the wall than where I often felt the sound seemed to come from. This disconcerted me as I now knew the sound could not have come from the heater and I was now old enough to realize that no other pipes or systems existed in that wall. Now the sound was even more creepy. But again, although the sound often seemed to come from that wall, whenever I really tried to localize it, the sound became illusive and seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Somewhere in the course of time, I lost touch with that friend and I must have stopped hearing the sound as well, as I do not hear it now, but I don't remember exactly when I stopped hearing it. Often, I did not want to hear it as it was a creepy thing to hear an unexplained sound at night, and somewhere along the line, I must have gotten my wish.

In fact, I had forgotten all about the strange sound until about 6 months ago when the memory suddenly came back to me just as I was falling asleep. I was surprised to realize I could have forgotten such a strange memory for so long. Now I wonder how many other weird memories I have laying half dormant in my mind. And I also really wonder what the heck that sound was!

Eye Candy

I sit alluringly at the top of these stairs, my tight sparkling blue and red dress showing off every curve of my perfect hips and body, and my long shiny black hair pulled into an elaborately loose updo that took hours to achieve. My life is calm and relaxing. My job is only to look beautiful and be gracious.

I have placed myself here in this spot on these stairs so that people can see my beauty as they enter our house. My husband's friends will be visiting soon and he will want them to see me and be jealous of me. He didn't specifically say this to me, but instinctively I know how to best grace this house. These talents have been ingrained in me since my birth. I please men with my beauty and delicacy. I am an exquisite decoration that brings the utmost pride to my household.

My husband is over twice my age and ordinary in appearance, but that's fine with me. He is wealthy and gives me everything I need. As long as I do my job, he is satisfied. In fact, I am reassured to know I am the most valuable thing in this house. Every visitor looks to me with desire and/or jealousy. They all either want me or wish they could be me. But only my husband can have me. I am fully satisfied with my life.

It never once occurs to me that the situation might change when I become older and less attractive. I only live in the now.

All My Children

She lays still, a tall thin figure reduced to a diminutive bump under the antique white quilt of the massive dark wood bed. She is rolled onto her side in a fetal position facing away from me towards the nearest wall, her long dark hair in disarray, the covers barely disturbed around her. The lighting is dim and the drapes are pulled tight against the domineering sunshine. The delicate peach pink color of the expensive shag carpet pervades the room, even on the several steps that lead up to the spaceous bathroom. Despite the rich surroundings, a feeling of stagnation and depression fills the air.

The woman thinks to herself, "I am depressed because of All My Children."

At the time, I think she is referring to the soap opera of the same name, but after I wake up, I wonder if she meant something else.

Waitress

I frantically scribble down food orders on a blue sheet of advertising paper. I can barely read my own writing on that dark paper. The regular ticket book for taking orders was not in my pocket when I reached for it, so now I will have to track it down and rewrite all these orders before I can give them to the kitchen staff. I am getting nervous. People are pouring into the dining room, expecting to be waited on immediately. Everyone is coming in at the same time and the area I'm responsible for looks huge. I have taken only 4 orders so far, but already the orders are becoming confused in my mind. I decide I must get these off to the kitchen so that at least some of my orders will be in at the front of the slam.

I deliver the 4 orders and then literally run back to the dining room, my long legs moving smoothly over the carpet and my blond pony tail bobbing behind me. The booths are almost full of customers now and almost all of them look fidgety. I will start to get complaints soon and my mind races to choose my strategy. I go to the back where the customers look most anxious and whip out my ticket pad, but before I can even say hello, a medium built mousy woman coming from the bathroom area demands my attention.

Her long straight hair is pulled back into a loose pony tail. She is slight of build, atheletic looking, and angry. She directs my attention to where the carpet of the dining room transitions to the tile in the hall to the bathrooms. The carpet there is worn and threadbare and several pieces of silver duct tape have been applied to one edge. The woman tells me that several days ago, one of her daughters tripped on that area of carpet. She starts telling me exactly what happened and her story drags on because she insists on adding every little irrelevant detail, but it's clear that if I don't attend to her concerns diligently, she will go ballistic. She is in a rightous ferver. As she blathers, I am looking at the carpet and trying to figure out how anyone could trip over a few patches of worn carpet the size of silver dollars. I do notice the floor is slightly uneven there, causing a subtle rise in the height of the carpet in one area.

I imagine her two little girls are playing there, teasing each other and not paying attention. They are giggling and one of them is twirling around on one toe and doesn't raise her other foot quite high enough, instead dragging it on part of the carpet. Since she is already off balance, it doesn't take much to cause her to fall down. She flops painfully on her hip and the sudden motion finally catches the inattentive eye of her Mother. The girl cries for a few minutes until the pain subsides.

As the Mother fusses over the sniveling child, deep inside, she feels guilty for not paying attention to her children and allowing them to run wild while she prattled on with her friends. But it's easier on her self esteem to blame it on the carpet and the restaurant. Her guilt is converted outward to an anger that protects her from self examination. In her mind, the carpet has become an imminent danger to children everywhere and a grievous oversight on the part of the restaurant, a problme that in her mind must take precedence over all other activities.

The woman finally pauses in her tirade long enough for me to ask if she wants to speak to the manager. She looks happy at my statement, probably assuming I share her concerns, but really I am only looking for a way to get back to work. I start searching frantically in the big restaurant for the assistant manager who is on duty today, but as usual, he is difficult to find. Eventually, I track him down in the lower offices under the main dining hall. I give him a rough rundown of the problem as he ascends the stairs with me back to the main dining room. His dark grey hair is slicked back in a strange puffy blob away from his calm implacable face and I idly wonder how he gets his hair to stay in place while still looking natural.

Soon we are approaching the dining room and we immediately know something is horribly wrong. There is quiet, nothing but quiet. Normally we would hear the loud buzz of ceaseless chatter and clanking plates, but now there is a somber silence. I see one woman bustling out the front door and I ask her what is going on, but she doesn't want to talk to me. She just keeps trotting away without answering.

We enter the dining room and hear an angry snarling voice. It is the bartender in his little drink alcove. He is wiping out a glass with a rag while simultaneously cursing and snarling loud expletives. The depth of his anger startles me. I can't understand why he hasn't just left if he is that angry.

As I pause in my tracks, I am surprised to see the assistant manager who came in with me is moving steathily behind a wall. I realize he is not going to deal with this issue but instead has chosen to just hide and listen for now. For a moment, I entertain the thought of going up to the bartender and trying to help. We have always had a good rapport. But the intensity of his snarling hatred scares me. He is not now the man I thought I knew. I also slink behind the wall next to the assistant manager.

I feel sorry for the bartender, but my strongest emotion is of relief. Most of our customers have left and it wasn't my fault. I had nothing to do with it. And now I'll easily be able to catch up with my food orders.

My Life and 2 Cents

[A dream about a girl]

My life is not worth 2 cents, I know that. I’ve always known it. It’s not something I get emotional about. It’s just a fact. When I was a kid, I used to live with a hunchbacked lady who lived in a big house. The house was not hers. She lived with another family. She spent all her time hunched over in a blue short sleeved shirt and white pants, sitting bent over a sewing machine, her long black hair with grey streaks always pinned in the same messy bun at the back of her head. I don’t remember her doing anything else but that. Thinking about it, maybe she didn’t really have a hunched back, but sitting there like that, she sure looked like she did and that’s how I remember her.

I remember I got my food sitting at the kitchen table with another couple and some of their kids. I guess they were the ones who owned the house but I’m not sure. I know they provided the food, while the other woman with the bun sat hunched over in her room, because sometimes she wouldn’t even come out for food. Other than that, I don’t really remember much about those times. I remember there was lots of fabric around and needles to poke your hand on if you weren’t careful. It wasn’t much fun.

I remember I would run around too much. That’s what they told me. I needed to be more quiet and stop running. Running in the house was bad. Therefore, I was bad. I didn’t know how to contain myself. I kept forgetting, and then I would run.

One time I tripped on the carpet coming down the stairs and ran into someone coming up with a tray of food and drink. Red liquid spilled all over the expensive hall carpet. I knew that was bad, but no one said anything that time. They didn’t bother to tell me I was bad. They didn't even yell. Maybe they thought I already knew it by then.

It was not long afterwards that I was standing outside in the driveway surrounded by three boxes and some small pieces of furniture. A car was coming for me. All my stuff was in those boxes on the pavement, waiting for some guy to come and pick it up. It wasn’t much stuff. After a while, the adults began to get nervous and upset. He was late and they weren’t sure if he was coming, but finally he came. He seemed nice enough. He picked up the stuff and put it in his car and we drove a long way to a big white house.

The columns on this house were huge. When we drove up, that’s all I could think about. Gigantic carved white columns perfectly supported the eaves all the way around the outside of the house. The columns were so white that it looked like they were just painted that morning, not a speck of dirt on them, they were almost shining.

I was afraid of those columns. They were too big for me, too perfect, just like the house. The idea of being there scared me, but I was relieved to find out I would instead live in a tiny house way in the back, far behind some trees. My house had only a small living room, two small bedrooms and one tiny bath. I liked our house much better. I felt comfortable there. It felt natural.

I spent most of my time either in the small house with the man who picked me up or running around outside in the dirt and dust. There's some trees and a small creek way in the back. I liked that, more space to run and nothing important to damage, so I was happier and felt more free than I had ever felt before.

The man was always quiet and calm, didn’t talk much, just enough to say what was necessary. I liked him. He made me feel relaxed. He didn’t talk much, but he never got angry either. Still, he seemed sad most of the time. He always looked bewildered, as if he was lost and couldn’t find himself inside that big cavern inside his head, so instead he would stare out in quiet confusion at the world.

When I turned 12, I finally got this assembly plant job. My job is to pack these projector machines into these boxes. Sometimes, as a break, I also get to sweep the dust off the floor with a broom. I was really lucky to get this important job at such a young age. That’s what everyone keeps telling me and I believe them. If I were to damage this projector right here in this box, I would probably be fired on the spot. Projectors cost money and my life is not worth more than a projector. I have to be really careful and think about what I am doing at all times. I can’t run around all the time without thinking like I used to.

The other day, me and the man were in our living room. He was sitting in the chair reading a newspaper when a lady came in with a message. I think she was one of the other women who work around here. I am sure I saw her before a few times. She poked her head in the door and told the man that some woman had gotten on the train and left for someplace far away and probably would not be coming back. The man seemed more confused than ever by this news. I am not sure, but I think the woman on the train was my mother. At least that’s the impression I got.

After receiving the news, the man got up from his paper and began to do the dishes. In the process, he accidentally tipped over a can of cayenne pepper from off the window sill and it spilled all over the kitchen counter. He kept trying to scoop up the powder with his big hands and pour it back into the container, but the opening to the container was small and his hands were big. And they were quaking. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get the pepper back into the can. Maybe his life is not worth 2 cents either.

Soldier

I was a soldier, standing on a hill, facing a dilemma. Several of my troops had gone and done something both brave and stupid, they had taken a chance, and now they were in trouble. It was left to me to decide, either go in and rescue them, or stay here and protect the rest of my troops. I was angry to now be in this position. Those soldiers should have known better, they should have been more careful. I had gotten away with many a trick manuever in my day, now I would be faced with one more attempt to defy logic. It would be risky, but I decided I would try my luck once again and go in after those who were in trouble.

I knew my own great skill in tactical decisions and quickly worked out the only possible plan, to split my troops into several guerrilla style detachments and try to sneak my way in and out while the others distracted the enemy. It would be extremely risky. I gave my orders and all of us wearing slightly varying shades of grey green colored army looking clothing, as if some of the dye lots had not quite matched, and with our older style rifles slung over our shoulders on shiny patent leather strap, headed out through the hilly forested land.

The plan was no sooner made then it began to unravel. My part of the group was taking heavy fire. There were far more enemy than I had predicted and no way we would reach our target. In helter skelter fashion, I gave the order to retreat. Not only was my rescue plan failed, but the rest of my troops were now in mortal danger. I knew it was all my fault. I had taken the same stupid risk that the guys I was trying to rescue had taken, but I had mistakenly allowed myself the hubris of thinking I could do it more effectively. As I ran bent over in an attempt to not get shot, I castigated myself for my stupidity.

I was in the lead and I kept trying to look back and see if the rest were following. I saw a few of my guys but felt sick inside knowing several in the back had probably already fallen and there was nothing I could do to help them. We were taking fire now from behind and the left side. A collapsing old stone wall protected us from fire on the right but there were probably enemy to the right as well. The situation was dire.

Moments later, I came around a low hill only to come face to face with 2 soldiers pointing their rifles directly at me. Several others backed them up from the left. All had their rifles aimed while mine was still pointing down from when I was running. There was no chance. I would die a failure and all my troops would die as well because of me. I bowed my head and tears welled fiercely in my eyes. Intense sorrow washed over me as I waited for death.

And it all went blank.

Land of Steep Mountains

We lived inside the caves, all of us. Our caves were hand carved in such a way as to blend in, rounded corners and curved alcoves as if nature herself had created them, but each nook and each cranny was conveniently placed to serve as water storage, as shelves, or as walkways. Nothing was left to waste. I lived here a happy life, in the midst of adolescence, I had not yet reached my full height, but I was strong and well adjusted. For the most part, my life was a content one.

Howevever, it was with much surprise that I was told I had been chosen to go on the hunt. It was a great honor, they told me, for one so young. Few are chosen. At first, I was nervous. What if I should not live up to expectations? But soon, my mind began to fantasize. I could be the one to find the much needed treasure. I would be the toast of our society, talked about for generations as a great and brave hero of our people. The idea warmed my heart and I allowed myself to dwell on it for many pleasant nights.

Finally, the day of the hunt arrived. Gone was all my earlier bravado as we stood on the slope of a great mountain that ascended at an extreme angle of 70 degrees. All our land was this way, consisting entirely of impossibly steep mountains that reached impossibly high into the sky. Outside of our caves, we only new of these spires. No flat land was present anywhere and all movement outside of the caves carried a danger of falling and death.

On the sides of the slopes, trees and forest plants had well adapted to anchoring themselves down into the rock and soil. Large clumps of lichen type plants made soft grey mounds between the stones. We climbed slowly, strung together with jangling climbing gear in an attempt to prevent serious accidents. Each step was exhausting and tedious as we hunted for signs of natural ores and materials that would advance our society. But everywhere was just more of the same plain grey rocks, thin reddish trunks of trees shooting straight towards the sky, and small bushes scattered between the trunks. There was no white rock and no shiny metallic rock, just the same old grey. It all looked the same for as far as we could see. Sometimes an entire generation would pass before a new discovery was made. I knew the chances of success on any one miniscule mission were small.

After a time we stopped and rested. Exhausted mentally and physically, I sat down on a small rock and hoped it would anchor me from falling. We sat with our legs pointing down the mountain. As if sitting on the slope of a cliff, I could see the mountain side go straight down for miles below me until the combined thickness of the tree trunks prevented any further vision.

Lifting my head and looking straight out in front of me, only a few miles in front was the face of the mountain next to us, appearing exactly the same as the one I was sitting on. The air was so clear I felt I could almost reach out and touch the other mountain. Somewhere far far below out of sight, I knew the two mountains must slant down to touch eachother, but we never went down there. It was too far.

Finally, my head sagged down to see the ground between my legs and I was startled to see a small pile of crumbled grey rock right there in front of me. How had I missed that? Everyone knew that fresh crumbled rock meant an area of danger. Only an idiot tarried in the vicinity of a crumbled rock pile. If I had any brains, I would get up immediately and move. But I was tired and I didn't want to draw the attention of the others to my mistake. If I moved now, they would wonder why. And I was tired. As much as I wanted to get away from the scene of my mistake, I was not eager to exert myself further. We would move soon anyway and I decided to take my chances and wait until then. Most likely, I would get away with it with my honor intact.

I had lost all hope of finding any treasure on this trip. Instead, I decided to concentrate only on keeping up with the others and avoiding trouble. From now on, I would be more careful of crumbled rock piles and if we were all just as careful, we would make it back home with no injuries. By now, that was all I could find in my heart to hope for. These expeditions were long and hard and when we returned, we would have to face the disappointment of the elders. This wasn't nearly so fun as I had expected, but I had a duty to my society to at least try. I would continue as long as they wanted me, even if in my heart I felt it was a waste of time.

Stunted

I crawl in circles on my hands and knees. Around my neck is a taught metal chain attached on the other end to an old wooden post. I am rarely fed properly but I don't really notice. I am in a daze. My pants are frayed and bursting at the seams and my old stained white t-shirt is much too small for me. I am unclean and I stink. Even my body is too small for my age, stunted by a lifetime of suffering. I should be in adolescence by now but instead my body looks like an 8 year old. If I wanted to, I could stand up, snap the chain, and leave. I am big enough. I have the power to do that, but it doesn't occur to me. I know no different, I don't know I have power, so I just continue doing what I have always done. I continue to crawl around the pole, the hard metal chain pressing tightly against my throat.

Crime and Punishment

I am a man sleeping on a large hunk of burnt orange colored foam about the size of a bed. My goal is to travel out of body and attempt to gather information needed for an investigation of a crime. This is an experiment. We don't know if it will work. But I feel my mind beginning to shift into another state and then I begin to see something.

Now I am a woman in a short skirt bent over a table talking to a man and a woman. They are sitting in what looks like a restaurant, each on opposite sides of a table, settled into booths with high backings that give this area a small feeling of privacy even though the rest of the place is crowded. They are sitting far from the aisle, near the window. Because I am standing in the aisle, I have to bend way over the table to talk to them quietly, but I like doing this. My butt sticks out and I hope this will draw the attention of any men in the room because the feeling of being sexy and desirable pleases me.

We three are guilty of a crime that involved murder and finances and now we are hoping we won't get caught. I am scared but at the same time, the thrill of conspiracy excites me. I am enjoying the feeling of comradery I have towards the man. I also experience inklings of sexual tension and desire for him but I know that it would be unwise to spend too much time with him while they are still investigating our crime. I banter with the man, more for fun than out of necessity. We should not be talking, but I figure a little bit won't hurt and it makes me feel better.

I hear him say to me, "I heard about your upcoming eye surgery." We say several more things and then he says, "I guess you could get your father to take you all around." The last statements hangs in the air because we both know my father is old and infirm and would find such a job difficult.

I am talking mostly with the man but across from him sits a woman who is a lapdog wall flower. She doesn't say much and she doesn't think much other than what people tell her to think. She is also scared, but unlike me, she deals with it by withdrawing into herself. She deals with life moment by moment. Her personality is almost nonexistant and she is timid and so she is quiet. I barely think about her. She's a nonissue.

For his part, the man has a handsome but otherwise ordinary appearance, a light weight light colored jacket, and brown hair. He is trim of build and medium of height and likes to stand with his hands stuck in his pockets. He chats with me now but his attitude towards me has shifted considerably in recent days. I don't realize this but although before the crime he thought of us as partners, now abruptly he is looking at me as a liability and something out of his control. He does not like anything out of his control and he now ponders how convenient it would be if I were out of the picture. He smiles at me while he is trying to think of how to best get rid of me. His nature is pure Machiavellian.

And the scene starts to break up. My concentration is returning to the waking world and I decide this is good. Any longer and I would start to lose concentration and forget my experiences. I wake up again on the burnt orange foam. I struggle to remember details of the experience despite how difficult it is to remember from such an altered state of mind. But I am pleased. We won't know if this information will be useful or even accurate, but at least I was able to mentally travel and come back with information that seems interesting. I get up off the bed, shake the sleep from my mind, and consider what I should do next on this day. I take a few steps.

And then the scene starts to break up. I now wake up on my real bed. I am a bit confused. I struggle to remember details of the experience despite how difficult it is to remember from such an altered state of mind. I have had another experience but I don't feel like this one is interesting enough for the blog. It's not like the others. I don't think I will post it but I write down the information anyway in case it might be important. Later in the day, I think about it more, change my mind, and write up the story.

Old Lady and Young Man

I shuffle around some chairs and a large rectangular wood dining room table. It's cramped in here, a small room full of big furniture and porcelain nicknacks and figurines. I approach the wall and look at myself critically in the mirror. I have a giant goiter on my neck. I am always surprised when I see how big it is, but somehow it doesn't seem to cause any problems other than its gruesome appearance. I wonder for the nth time why it has to be me that is afflicted with it.

I am an old lady with frizzy grey hair, a slightly hunched back, and am wearing a medium long white flowered dress and heavy cloth apron. My hair is pinned back, but some of the frizz in the front always escapes. I am too old to have much concern about my looks, but still I would feel a lot better if I could somehow get rid of that giant goiter. It is so big and ugly, there is no way to hide it, not with clothes nor with strategically placed hair, so much so that I have completely given up trying. I have learned to live with it and although I often wish it would one day miraculously go away, I don't hold out much hope that it actually will.

Later in the day, I am moving around the tiny kitchen with old yellowed linoleum that is curling up in the corners of the room. My young nephew is coming over. I can't wait to see him. I am cooking him a nice dinner to make him happy. His visit will be the highlight of my day.

[My viewpoint shifts to third party observer]

The doorbell rings and she answers it. In the doorway stands a tall hunched over young male with a baggy overcoat and a bad attitude. His hunched posture is not from physical problems but from lack of desire to be there. His face is average, neither handsome nor ugly, a bit of extra flesh around the mouth highlighting a sour downturned mouth. This man rarely smiles. He considers this lady to be old fashioned and impossibly clueless. She doesn't listen to him and she doesn't understand him. She lives in her own world which has nothing to do with reality or what he thinks is important. She disgusts him, the sight of that hideous goiter most of all, and he can't wait to get this visit over with and leave. Meanwhile, he will be sullen and unappreciative until he finally has an excuse to escape.

She on the other hand is happy he is there. She walks around elated to be able to serve him. After some time, she eventually notices that he is not talking much and seems unhappy. She works hard to be cheery so he will feel better. No matter how disrespectful and rude he becomes, she will never realize that he does not like her. Such ideas do not exist in her world. She will always have a list of excuses for him that make perfect sense in her fantasy world, and every time she breaks further from reality, his disdain for her will only grow. What she needs to do is see him for what he is, tell him straight, yell in his face, set limits and enforce them. Only then will he respect her. But she never will.

What To Do?

It's night and I am outside, leaning up against this car in my expensive blue jeans, waiting for my parents to come out of the store. The store is bustling and dozens of people are pushing their way out of the double doors every minute. I look at them and they all seem so 'together' so happy and without a care. I envy them. None of them are like me.

No one would ever suspect that not long ago, I allowed myself to get raped and that it happened repeatedly. They would think I was better than that. They would believe I should have known what to do, a girl like me who is smart, strong, and pretty with a sassy attitude.

I imagine telling my parents what happened when they come out of the store. I imagine the shock and disgust that would show on their faces as they stood in front of those double doors with so many people streaming by, the disappointment they would feel that I had not lived up to their standards. It would ruin their organized little world. They would be irritated and embarrassed that it might get out and unsure how to deal with this new shock. The look on their faces alone would be devastating to me. I decided that as much as this secret writhed within me and consumed my whole world, I would not tell them. It would be easier that way.

Through a Mirror Darkly

I look at myself posing in front of a long mirror, like the kind that are hung on the back of doors. I see a young skinny African American child, maybe 8 or 9 years of age, medium dark skin, hair kept short, naked except for boxer shorts and socks. I am short with small sinewy muscles typical of a child that age. I can't stand the sight of myself.

My body is weak and spindly, really an expected build for a child of that age, but in my mind, I am impossibly small and good for nothing, a complete failure, useless in every way. I wish with all my heart that I could be big and strong, tall and powerful with huge bulging muscles and chest. That way, I would be an important person in life, not this insignificant slug that is me. The emotions of longing and self loathing consume me so much I can't think.

Violence in the Playground

I was standing on the grass in the schoolyard staring at the long building in front of me. The excitement was intense, very much a sexual kind of excitement. No one else was out yet but any minute, people would begin to percolate out of those doors and I would get what I wanted. I would experience the joy and pleasure and release. I trembled with excitement at the prospect. I could hardly wait. Some weakling would come out and they would be alone or I would follow them until they were alone. The details didn't matter because I would find a way to get what I wanted. I was big and powerful and they were weak. I could feel the power and strength in my muscles and I was proud of it. I would go up the them and pound my fist into their brain. I would punch and kick them and feel their bones break and feel my fists sink into their flesh. I would pound their face and their big white grapeskin eyes until they popped. I would jam my fingers into their flabby skin until blood spurted out and bright red bruises bloomed and they would scream and writhe until they could no longer move. I could hardly wait.

The First of the Strangeness

I was asleep. And then..

I was in ‘my room’ wherever that was because it wasn’t any of my normal rooms. I lived at ‘home’ but it was not any I have actually lived in. That was one weird unexplained world right there, but I was looking out the window of this room and I noticed that with my right eye, I could see a lot of buildings, buildings that in my mind were not supposed to be there. I was curious to see these buildings. I guess life was so boring that buildings that were not supposed to be there were exciting. I reasoned that maybe my other eye could see them too, so I slowly closed the left eye and then reopened it again and then it could see the buildings with that eye as well.

I felt that if I concentrated hard enough, I could keep the new world in view. I noticed many big long buildings with many doors like at a school yard. There was one that I was apparently ‘in’ now and then there was another across a hall and parallel to mine. To the right there was some open space of dry dirt and sparse weeds and another building that was at right angles to the first with the bulk of it out of sight behind me. The buildings had dark brown fascias and eaves and what looked like white stucco on the sides. They appeared well kept, something one might see in the 70s, but the humans seemed to dress a bit old fashioned, with the women wearing longer dresses with subdued colors. The men wore clothing like one might see the amish wear or like from older times, dark colored pants, white long sleeved shirts with the cuffs rolled up, sometimes with vests, and hair short. I remember seeing a keychain coming out of a pocket. The feeling of the people was not of being overly strict on dress though, just that this was how people typically dressed here.

This place was busy! Adults were going about tasks and I saw maybe one or two adolescent males, also working. There were some carts and tables with stuff on them but I did not look to see what the stuff was. My overwhelming impression was of these many big buildings and also of lots of clutter, ropes hanging coiled on a wall, tables, carts, people, the halls and walls were just plain cluttered up with no blank spaces.

Now I was curious if this world was real so I decided to go out the window and see if I landed in this strange new world. I began pushing hard on the window screen and it bowed outward impossibly far and put up quite a resistance. And then I was out and standing on the pavement in the hall. The new world surrounded me. I ran up to a middle-aged woman with a smock and long frizzy curly blond hair that was pulled back in a loose pony tail. She looked busy and harried but I tried to ask her a question. However, the words stuck in my throat in shock.

My voice was coming out all small and squeaky! I realized it was the voice of a very young girl. Even for a young girl, it was a high voice, and there was a strange accent to it. I paused at this realization and the busy woman looked disgusted with me and walked off about her business. I tried to place the accent. It wasn’t quite like anything I have ever heard. I realized the others were talking with it as well, a long sort of drawl. The closest I could describe it would be similar to a slow southern drawl mixed with some kind of unknown foreign country accent.

I approached another person, a man this time. He barely paused his fast walk and then absently waved me off. Then I tried another woman and stuttered something about ‘why, who?’ She tried to listen, but I trailed off. I was confused now. I wasn’t sure what it was I even wanted to ask. I was in this place, a child here obviously, and these were my parents, relatives, and my community, all busy. And they had no time for childish questions. There was nothing really to ask. After that, I have no recollection.