Category: Dream

I was on an island with my mother and my step father, Robert. We all worked at a small island market managed by an older man, a WWII veteran who was on the island when the war ended and was still there. My mother and Robert were the entertainment, they played nightly as a musical duo in the market. There was no other work on the island for any of us, it was just this market for us. It was understood that without the jobs we would have to leave.

Out on the beach, in front of the market, a short round black woman and her physically identical nanny are playing a game with the woman’s small son, Franklin. The woman, the mother, hollers out “Wherrrrrrre’s Franklin!”  with great seriousness while Franklin hides very nearby smiling and giggling. They pretend they cannot find him. They sit on the lush grass in the shade of an enormous tree as they play this game. The game repeats, and each time the nanny smiles warmly when Franklin cannot be found.

In the market we hear that my mother and Robert are to be laid off. We learn that a large company has purchased the island market and the company feels mom and Robert are too good, too upscale. The older man, the market manager, is being laid off as well. I was sitting with the bewildered group at a long white fold-out table. It was myself, the market manager, my mom and Robert, and Robert’s ex wife and her new husband, Ken. Robert was beside himself, defeated. From his expression I could see that this—being too upscale—was all that was left to undo him, and finally it had come. My mom was angry in the usual way—she, a victim of this awful world, powerless against its awful and nonsensical people. Still, the great sadness was that they would have to move from the island.

Somehow Pam, Ken, and I were able to keep our jobs. However, I was so upset by the sale of the market that I was going to quit in protest, to rebel. The rebellion would start with my use of the book. The book was a large book with many colorful illustrations. It described the rejuvenation of bodies with crystals—rejuvenation to a level of greater than normal strength. The older market manager had very bad knees and I remembered an illustration in the book of the human body with colorful glowing knees. The color came from the application of crystal power to the whole weakened body as it healed and strengthened the broken areas—the knees in this case.

I took the book and the market manager down the beach to an elementary school. The school was a large, solitary hall lined with identical doors, behind which were small dark rooms. I moved the market manager into one of those rooms and closed the door. The room was very small, no bigger than a double bed. Immediately to my left there was an extremely steep stairway that led down into a slightly larger room. Every inch of this room was covered in pale orange shag carpeting. It has the feeling, the smell, of being underground.

There were no objects in the room. Under the descending stairway, in a space only as long as the stairway itself, was a sunken space. In that space was the market manager, his health had worsened. Above me, above us, up in the main hall I could hear a man hollering and banging on the door. He opened the door to the small room above us but then said nothing. Then, after I thought he had left, he yelled down that I was suspended. I could then hear the sound of kids in the halls. The man shouted that they too were all suspended. Then he came down the stairway and leaned over to look down at both of us. He was very angry. He saw the market manager, now clearly in poor health, in the sunken space under the stairs. There was a tense moment, then the man recognized the market manager as a fellow war veteran, maybe even a friend. His anger turned to pity, somehow it felt like pity for both of us. He left us, and he closed the door to the upper room.

It was here that I realized I had left the book and the crystals somewhere. I felt a sense of defeat. This room beneath another room also had a stairway that continued further down. I looked at the store manager as if to comfort him that I’d be back. I went down the darkened stairway. I made great strides downward for what seemed like a very long time. At the end, the last step was into a dark puddle of water and sand. I moved toward the only light. The light eventually opened to a sunlit shoreline. I had come out of a cave onto a short beach with an impossibly tall cliff that shot up all around it.

There was no way off the beach except into the ocean. Well, there was an impossibly thin trail carved in the cliffside that zig-zagged up to the top. I knew I had to climb it but that felt doomed, doomed to fall off, or slide off.

The cave I had come from was now covered by a large fence and a gate. There was no way over or around it. The gate had a strange lock on it, sharp and thin. Deeper into the cave I could faintly see patches of shag carpeting on the walls, and there was a puddle at the entrance. The puddle was as wide as the cave floor. I had a feeling something bad would happen if I waded through.

I started up the cliff on the thin trail. As I did I could hear someone else behind me. The trail was too narrow to look backwards without falling off, but I sensed it was a copy of myself. Together, we climbed to a dizzying height where the trail opened up to a landing, a shelf in the cliffside. The path seemed to stop here. I was sickened with fear at the idea of going back down the trail. There was a man standing at the edge of the landing. As I approached him, he told us (very matter of fact) that he could get the Flash for us. The person I’m with, the other me, mispronounces Flash and there is some back and forth confusion. Finally, the guy pointed and we looked down to see two ball caps floating a few feet below the water in the ocean below. The hat on the right was a Flash hat. I only assumed this from the orange and red colors.

The other me said yes to the Flash hat. I turned to look at him thinking, why do we need that? When I looked back to the man he was gone and we were back on the beach below. There was no sign of the Flash hat, but I was grateful to not be up on the cliffside and to have been magically transported down.

The gate closing off the cave was now open. We both ventured in a few yards but the wide puddle stopped us. There were two things floating in the puddle, a piece of wood and an old suitcase. The other me used the wood as a stepping stone and made it across the puddle. I did not go. I gestured that going into the tunnel was a bad idea. The other me didn’t respond. He went anyway and was soon gone into the darkness. In my mind I was imagining him making it to the stairway and up to the carpeted room. I wondered if the market manager would still be there, and I remembered that I had misplaced the book and the crystals. I felt horrible about this.

I heard noise in the cave. I could hear someone running but I couldn’t see them. I ran for the exit, to the gate, without looking back. I closed the gate and stared through the bars. The other me came running into the light but he looked different, he was disturbed and kind of monster-like. I struggled with the lock—I couldn’t get it to clasp shut. It was so cold and stuck and of a foreign design. I positioned it so that if he pushed on the gate it would not open but I exaggerated my motion as if it had latched at the last second—I was bluffing. If he had the presence to mess with the lock he could obviously get it off. I ran for the trail head but when I got there I could see that the trail thinned out to nothing only a few yards from where it started. It was like it had been erased. I thought it might be a trust exercise, that if I just believed in it and started the journey the trail would materialize when and where I needed it. I looked back to the cave entrance.

The small round black woman and her physically identical nanny were sitting on the beach just past the cave. Where they sat there was neatly mowed green grass, like an island of grass in the sand. They seem very content. They were playing the game with Franklin. I heard the mother say, “Wheeeerre’s Franklin!?”

I then see Franklin. He is stuck in the fence that walls off the cave entrance. His feet are stuck in the bars. The gate is still closed. The other me, the thing, that I closed the gate on, is still running, now towards Franklin. I am horrified at what is going to happen. The other me now sounds more vampire-like than when I left moments ago. Before I can do anything, he reaches the struggling Franklin and grabs the bars. He bends the bars wide open—an obvious show of more-than-human strength. He watches Franklin run away.

The bars are bent so far open that he could fit through, but he doesn’t. He goes back into the cave. I stare at the opening, the bent bars, for a long time. I feel vulnerable and exposed that there is a hole there. He could come through it if he wanted to. Then I realize that he is not confined to that area by the gate or the fence but by something else.

Down the beach I can see that Franklin found another hiding place and the “Where’s Franklin?” game continued. The mother and the nanny were looking out toward the ocean, unconcerned with where Franklin was. I got the feeling that they always know where Franklin is—like spirits watching over a small human experiment.

I was in an unfamiliar city. I was anxious, kinda frantic. I could feel that a lot was expected of me, there was a lot to do. I was wearing a white sport coat, a blazer, over a white t-shirt. The blazer was made of what felt like a line tablecloth material—smooth, thin, and synthetic. 

I was with a group of people. We were all trying to accomplish different things. We were able to fast-travel to different parts of the city like in a video game. I could zoom out and see the city abstracted into exaggerated shapes and colors, some areas much larger in scale relative to others. I could then be in a newly selected area almost instantly. This created a sense of frenetic activity where I was often disoriented not only in my location but in time. It felt like the time of day would shift around as we moved around completing our tasks. 

We were in an old industrial part of the city moving past large warehouses built many decades ago. I was carrying white boxes of different sizes. I had one in each hand. They were flat boxes like the shape of a box of chocolates, but they had no opening, or they had no discernible way of opening. I hold them upright like two white monoliths in my palms, nearly balancing them in front of me as I walk. I can walk very fast. There were lots of obstacles that I had to maneuver over, under, or around. Several times I had to fit myself through small spaces. The people I am with come and go as I move through different spaces. 

There is a conversation going on with them. It happens in fragments when I see them. They are asking me about the Mclaren, which I had forgotten about. It felt like I had forgotten about it entirely, its existence, and when they bring it up I am quickly filled with worry as I don’t know where it is.

Throughout our time together we have been sometimes driving and sometimes fast-traveling. But now there is an issue with our car, we no longer have it. In my mind, I am trying to work out my overall car situation but I cannot remember if I have a car, or maybe a couple cars. The Mclaren is the only car I can remember with certainty. The conversation within our group is reminding me that the Mclaren was at The Shop. However, as we travel, as we move through spaces, balancing our boxes, and talking intermittently, it becomes clear that The Shop has lost the Mclaren. The Shop is a car collector’s club where I kept the Mclaren before I had a garage.

It is here that a previous history blooms in my consciousness, like a cloud shape inside which is the memory of a certain circumstance. The circumstance is that I had called The Shop many times and no one could figure out where the Mclaren was. They kept saying they would call me back. They gave me the impression that they might not have been the last to have it. I was enraged at this gaslighting, this attempt to escape responsibility for it. Others in the group were also upset.

We fast-travelled to large white house on a hillside in, what felt like, Los Angeles. The lighting was surreal, not exactly daylight, though we were outside; and not interior light either. It was like light filtered through many lighting gels, one of which was light green. The front of the house was made of floor-to-ceiling windows. We were all seated outside the windows on very plain cement patio, a slab, really. There wasn’t room for all of us. I sat off the slab in the tall grass and dirt.

We had a leader. He was slightly larger than the rest of us—larger in scale for the world, not just taller. He was sitting on the cement leaning back against the house. One of my cousins sat next to him. We were all resting here, we were taking a break. The leader explained to us, without words, that inside the house was a special opportunity. I could see through the windows into the house. There was an equally plain white room with no interior lighting. Inside the room there were a couple dozen people. They were paired up in two rows, perfectly filling up the shape of the room. They were young men and women, all with an odd alabaster skin and dark hair. They were naked. Various pairs were at various stages of intimacy. Some were just resting, looking at us through the window.

I was excited for what appeared to be a chance to participate. I assumed we were going to go in and get paired up. Then I realized that the male-female ratio wasn’t perfect and there were a few young men sitting, or leaning, against the back wall who were unpaired. I thought to myself, of course, and sort of rolled my eyes—mostly to myself. Then our group leader said things had changed and there wasn’t room for all of us to participate. It was understood that I, and a few others, would not be included. My cousin, being young and very beautiful, was definitely going to participate. He was already taking off his clothes and stacking his things neatly on the cement. This was the first time I saw rollerblades. I think he was taking off his rollerblades. There was a quiet assumption on my part that we were all wearing them, and had been. 

The memory cloud was still expanding around me. The circumstance of the missing Mclaren was getting more complex as more of the memory faded in. I could remember many of the phone calls with The Shop and the uncertainty that the car was lost at all. They didn’t recall if I had it last, or they did. I also couldn’t recall—but I wasn’t admitting to that. I was heartbroken and desperate with depression because it was possible I’d parked it somewhere then forgotten I’d driven and went home by some other means. It could have been left behind months ago. 

I then remembered that The Shop was owned by Liz Silver’s parent company. This filled me with hope. A couple of the others in my group said we should go see her and she would set this straight, she would make The Shop do the right thing. We discussed this as we sat outside on the cement slab in the odd greenish sunlight, the unpaired young men inside still staring at me.

The decision was made that a couple of us would go to Liz’s house. This was an intense journey up the hillside. The path was both foreign and familiar. In certain sections of the trip I recognized that I’d traveled this many many times. At one place, there was a single dirt trail with tall grass on both sides. Across the trail was a hastily made wooden construct—a few old weathered boards nailed together to block the trail—save for a small opening at the middle. In the past, many times, I was able to easily get through the space. This time, it was clear I would not fit. I was still balancing boxes in my hands. It was not possible to crawl through the opening and hang onto the boxes. I essentially had no hands for this trip. I could not use them without setting down the boxes, and setting them down was not an option. In this way, we had to find a route to Liz’s house that did not require using our hands. We went down several paths only to have to double back. 

It was getting very late and very dark. The air was warm and dry. Liz lived in an enormous old mansion at the top of the hill. We made our way to one of her overgrown gardens in the dark, traveling through the occasional pool of light coming down from the house above. The garden was surrounded by an old wooden fence, half of which had collapsed into the tall grass. There was a terraced wall made of countless individual round stones. It was like the base of a pyramid. We were able to climb it taking large steps up each level while still holding our boxes. There were only two of us now. My remaining partner in the journey was very large. As we climbed toward the top I started to worry about having brought him. There was so much fervor when this plan was being discussed, but that was a while ago and now it was very late at night and the mood was quite different. 

We made it to the outdoor veranda, a sprawling terracotta tiled patio. The outside flowed into the inside without doors or walls. My friend stayed on the veranda, he was too large too comfortably fit inside the house. I was standing in front of a half open door that faced the veranda. Inside the room I could see a faint blue light in darkness. I was afraid, very afraid, that Liz was asleep and we’d be waking her. Her house assistant appeared next to the door. I knew her assistant and we exchanged knowing nods to one another. The look on her face communicated that it was okay for me to be here. 

Liz came out of the room. She had been working, not asleep. I was immensely relieved, but at the same time made more aware of the precariousness of the situation I had created. I was here in the middle of the night to ask a favor—a favor that now seemed petty. It would certainly seem petty to her. She stepped out into the light and I could see that she was much older than last I saw her. She smiled and I smiled back. Without saying anything, I communicated that I needed to talk to her. She and her assistant moved past me and down the hall. They were discussing something. 

It became clear that we were going to sit at a table and eat. To my right, and on the landing below, there was a pagoda. Inside the pagoda was a perfectly square white table made of porous marble or stone. The table’s surface was sunken with ornate black carvings in the surface. It reminded me a game table, but for a game from another country, presumably an asian country. The table was floating, as if on water. 

Liz’s mother and father appeared, then her sister and brother. Some other family members and friends joined us. I realized quickly that I needed to have a certain seat next to her at the table if I wanted to ask the favor. Someone took the optimal seat around the corner from her. I had to take a seat on the opposite side from her. I was grateful to get that seat as this was all happening quickly. The table sat four people on each side densely packed in. I no longer had the boxes in my hands. Liz’s sister was to my right, her arm pressed against mine, both of us looking at each other’s hands as they were awkwardly forced to be in front of us. We were too tightly against one other to lower our hands. We were all sitting on a continuous wooden bench, like a breakfast nook but with no open side. We all had to step down into it to take a seat. 

I was chatting with Liz’s sister. Each time I looked at her she had something different in her hands. At first it was a tiny pastry that she was happy to have. When I looked at the table it had a few things on it. It felt like a tea service. When I looked back to Liz’s sister she had a tiny tea cup filled to the absolute top with what appeared to be a perfect espresso shot. The cup was the size of a thimble. She was holding it with the tips of her fingers. When I looked again to the table it was absolutely filled with every delectable thing you could imagine—all so tightly packed together that it looked, at a glance, like a colorful tapestry. 

The table was indeed floating on water. We were all sitting in water. The table would occasionally jostle, as would the bench. The entire structure felt like it was floating down a river and we’d hit a rough patch. I looked at Liz’s sister again. Her espresso had spilled onto the tiny white saucer and splattered on her shirt. She was laughing quietly, though, and having a nice time. I looked down at my white linen jacket and saw that I too had splatters of expresso on it. I also saw other colors of splatter on it that I realized must have already been there. I was embarrassed for the state of my jacket, but I was also happy for the circumstance that we now all had messy jackets. Every time we were jostled and jolted and espresso would splatter, Liz’s sister was more delighted. Her joy was infectious. I started to feel very grateful for being in this company, adopted into this strange family despite being an obvious misfit. 

I looked at Liz across the table. She and her mother were talking about business. I could barely hear them over the sound of all the other conversations and the rustling water. 

I was at a party. It was a large party, partly indoors and partly outdoors. I was uneasy, uncomfortable. There were a couple of different women there that I was trying to avoid, or trying to avoid their awareness of each other. I couldn’t say who they were but I could feel their presence. I was worried I’d be found out, that there would be a huge scene here. I was anxious and depressed. 

I was outside in the patio area. It was a large open space. The floor was made of large ornate cement tiles, small groups of people were socializing. I felt exposed, like the things I feared might come get me, emerging from the more closely packed groups of people clustered under the summer awnings that trimmed the house. 

Still, I stood there, not sure what to do, where to go. 

Then she came upon me so fast I had no time to react. She was leaning on me, pressing the side of her body against me, then her back, like she was rolling around me. I knew who it was, she was familiar to me, comfortable. It was Jennifer Aniston. Of all the women I was worried about, she wasn’t one of them. But here she was. 

She rolled around me, touched me, caressed me, and finally settled into me, facing me, holding me. We danced a little together. We were the same height. I looked directly into her face. It was a comfortable place, a known place. I felt a little relaxed, but at the same time I realized this was a game-ending event. If any of the other women in my life saw this, I’d be done, I’d be ruined. I was pretty certain they were at this party. I felt the seconds ticking by, the bomb about to go off, as this coupling of myself and Jennifer would ripple throughout the party. 

Still, I couldn’t ignore the comfort. I couldn’t deny how surprised I was by the joy of her. She was pressing into me, all of her body touching me, warming me in this comforting familiar sensation. I was undone in that moment. I had a series of thoughts race through my mind. The most startling among them, “Why not Jennifer Aniston? Why have I fought this for so long? This woman loves me, she lights up with joy when we touch, she comforts me. I love her.”

At that moment there was a release for me, a letting go. 

I closed my eyes and melted into what she wanted. I knew that enough time had passed and the party was now surely alight with talk of our coupling, this secret was no longer a secret. I gave into that feeling, it washed over me, a tipping point.

She smiled, her jagged bangs hanging over her face. It was a smart sexy grin full of the knowing of what she had done, the pleasure of her own happiness. She kissed me. She kissed me again, and I was swept up in the touch of her lips, the infrequent small contact with her tongue, the wet kisses that traced the shape of my own lips. Her mouth tasted like sweet things I love. Her breasts pushed up against me. She pulled on me, held me, owned me. For a moment, I forgot the party around us, completely lost in the touch of her mouth on mine. 

I could not, for the life of me, figure out why I would not affix my life to this woman. Why had I fought against this? Why had I created all the complexity beyond this love?

I couldn’t answer that. In that moment, with the warmth of her face radiating on mine, her kisses draining me, her arms searching me for a more secure hold, I surrendered to the obvious answer. I let go of everything else in this world and fell into the most beautiful ending of me—which was oddly, perfectly, Jennifer Aniston. 

*Disclaimer, I don’t know Jennifer Aniston or have any connections to her. I have no romantic feelings for her. Her appearance in my dream seems completely random.

I’m in a boat speeding over smooth crystal clear water in the mid-day sun. I’m on Lake Nacimiento. It is a beautiful day. The sky is bright and distant and the light on the inside of the open boat is a surreal neutral cast on the white leather seats. I’m in the seat behind the driver’s seat facing backwards. My dad is in the back corner, the wind whipping his hair about. He seems happy. 

Looking around at the dry landscape and forward across the front of the boat I see that no one is driving. This must be Bill Giese’s boat as he is the only person I know who has a boat, I think to myself. It doesn’t seem too odd that no one is driving. Still, as I look over the side into the clear water I can see the rippled sandy bottom of the lake a bit too close to the surface. I know from experience that it always seems closer than it is, but still, it seems too close. 

I decide it would be better if I drove and I get into the driver set and take the controls. I slow us down a bit from full throttle to medium. I look around the windshield and steer us to the darker areas on the water where it is deeper. Soon the darker areas go away and it is getting very shallow. Still, the propeller doesn’t seem to hit bottom. I slow us down a bit more. We have clearly reached the edge of the lake now and the water is inches deep. Still, we continue at speed. Then we are on the sandy dry exposed lake bed devoid of any water. The boat continues at speed. I turn the boat around, only slightly surprised that it still moves over the dry ground at speed and is a little challenging to maneuver. I know I need to get us back to the water. There is now a growing sense of anxiety—I need to keep the momentum going until I can get us back in the water. If I slow down, I will surely be stuck. We are swerving around looking for an entry into the shallow water and hopefully the regular deep water. 

We end up driving alongside a dirt road. The road starts to climb up and I’m forced to merge onto it. There are people ahead and some livestock. We speed past a Vietnamese person carrying a large basket on their head. I realize we are in Vietnam. I stay to the left side of the road, out of the way of people and livestock. A bicycle racer passes us, then another, then a group of them and I realize there is bike race going on. I slow the boat to a stop in resignation that we are not going the right way. 

We are now quite high up the hill and to my left I can see below us a village and beyond that the lake we are looking for. How did we end up to the right of the village and the frontage road, I wonder? I turn the boat around and head back down the road. This is really embarrassing because we are going the wrong way during the bike race. We need to get off the road as soon as possible. I have to say to myself that I will survive this embarrassing moment and no one knows me in Vietnam anyway. 

I can see a path through the village below to the lake. This seems like the fastest way to get back in the water. I memorize the path, knowing I won’t have this vantage point when I get down there. I’m super smart that way. 

When we get down to the entrance of the village I can’t remember the path. The entrance is an opening in a rock wall. There is a thin metal gate about waist high. I crawl over it but the path through the rocks splits in a few directions and each path ends at a door, a half door, again about waist high. I choose one and crawl over it and into another small cave room. A young boy comes in from behind me, presumably having taken the same path as I. It occurs to me that this is his home, these are cave-like dwellings. I am worried that he is ignoring me because he’s going to get a weapon and come defend his house. I start to leave, crawling back over the half-door and head for the half-gate. The boy comes out of his house carrying a large piece of fruit the size of a football and a large knife. I get the message that I need to leave and, as quickly as I can, I head back to the entrance. I am crestfallen. I don’t know what to do next. There is another entrance up ahead so I go in there. It feels less like someone’s house, more like common village area. There is no clear open path to anywhere, just lots of rooms of different states of emptiness.

I decide to sit and rest in a room that is painted deep blue—it was painted deep blue decades ago. The floor is cement and sand and it is dark. I need to rest. My wife is with me. The room has a second door that leads to another adjacent room and, presumably, a labyrinth of rooms. I can see that the other room is dark red and orange. An older woman comes and goes between the rooms, a caretaker of sorts. She doesn’t speak to use but, still, she communicates that we can stay here. There is a sense of relief in both my wife and I. But then a series of realizations comes over us. Have we been sleeping, and for how long? Where are our things? I realize that I don’t have my bag, my laptop, any of my things. Meliza starts looking for her bag. It is dark outside but I don’t know what time it is. The caretaker communicates that it is 9:45pm. The realization then comes into focus that we have been wandering around setting our things down and forgetting about them. If we sleep now our things will surely be taken, stollen, by morning. Meliza finds her backpack in a corner of the room and is relieved. None of my things are in the room. I assume they are gone by now and I can’t understand how I could be so thoughtless. I look out the open door to the path outside, into the darkness. I try to console myself by remembering that they are just things, I can replace them. Still, I am emotionally lost, and deeply depressed that I am so absent minded. 

Then, standing there in the doorway with my hands in my pockets and my eyes closed, my mind melts and explodes with the thought—where did I leave Bill’s boat?

Dream: Mom Loses a Limb

My 7:30am alarm woke me. I fell back to sleep.

I was visiting with my mom. She was in a hospital recovery room. She looked melancholy, defeated. I knew this look well. I recognized it, but couldn’t  remember from where. It was just oddly familiar, that look.

I felt uncomfortable and looked away. Neither of us said anything. When I looked back mom’s leg was separated at the knee and she was lowering it down to reconnect it. I only caught the last moment of this but I was shocked by the physicality, the reality of it. I looked at her with a long wordless stare. She said nothing for a long time.

Then she said, “The doctor, she kept chopping away at it.” The implication was that it started as a small thing and eventually came to this. I couldn’t tell where the real leg ended and the faux leg started. I was confused by how it fused together. She seemed really sad that I now knew this.

I examined her leg. I lifted it from the ankle and held it up to look down the length. I expected to see the seam where the amputation mets the prosthetic but I could not. She said something about the high quality of the work. There was an ornate patterned fabric seam down the inside and outside of her leg that made it a continuous leg, an uninterrupted pattern. I was confused as to how it could have been two pieces a moment ago.

She told me that it is two pieces but doesn’t say where, she only implies that it is sad how much is gone.

She said that the problem is getting healthy food. She says it is hard to get the food she needs to stay healthy, the implication was—to stay whole. I inferred that without the right food she would continue to lose parts of herself.

I suggested she should come live with me, that I have a Whole Foods nearby and I can get all she needs. As I’m saying this I am thinking about how I let this happen. How did it come to this? How did I not do something about this sooner? I am lost in time. I can’t seem to reconcile that something feels off, but that thought feels unimportant given the situation in front of me. I am trying to grapple with the impact of my mom losing part of her leg, trying to imagine the impact to our lives, how she feels.

Her illness is apparently dietary, as she has said, but something in my mind remembers differently and it is impossible to reconcile the two feelings.

I wake up to the 7:40 alarm.

I am aware of my bed and the real morning darkness. I am comforted by the fact that my mom didn’t lose part of her leg. I am relieved that she is okay. It was just a dream. My shoulder, my arm, are both asleep, I can’t feel them, and I struggle to turn over, to become untwisted. 

Then awareness slowly crawls over my consciousness that something isn’t right about my mom. Something I can’t remember. Then reality, life in the moment, floats upward with the last pieces of consciousness, and I realize she is dead.

I was back in Los Angeles, and back on rollerblades. I was in the Silverlake neighborhood on a steep hill that overlooked downtown LA in the not so distant distance. It was a bright perfectly sunny day bathed in that Southern California light. Lawns were green, the streets were clean, very clean. 

I was with a group of people, we were all skating—but that wasn’t odd for us. We were always skating. We had been skating all day, actually, it felt like we’d been skating for many days, maybe always; and this day had never ended or begun again. 

But on this hillside, on this steep street, we had all stopped. We were scattered around in a loose large circle, random resting points. I had my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath. My old creative partner, David, was in the intersection just below us. The street was momentarily level there before it descended again down down down toward the 10 freeway. David was talking to us. 

David was proudly pointing in the direction of each best restaurant. He pointed that way for best sushi, that way for best Thai, and that way for best Mexican, etc. Each was in a very different direction. It made our mission seem all the more impossible because we had such a wide area to cover. 

I knew I was the best of us on skates, and over this terrain there was no doubt. But I was with a woman. She had dark long hair. She was confident and strong but she didn’t skate. I had to carry her when we moved, but I was only slightly disabled by this. She felt like an essential part of me that I could not let go of. She didn’t say anything. She stayed securely wrapped around me, our chests pressed against one another and her head resting on my shoulder. 

Then it was time to go. 

The steep descent in front of me, in front of us, led downward then transitioned to an equally steep uphill ascent that I could not see over the top of. I couldn’t remember what was over that hill but it didn’t matter. I decided that I could use the g-force at the bottom of the transition to generate enough momentum to float up and over the ascent of the hill. This would require an enormous amount of g-force at the bottom. I wasn’t certain about pulling that off. 

I didn’t have time to think about it, everyone was moving. I tucked the dark haired woman closer to my chest and we moved. We were descending and gaining speed. Suddenly, there was a small wall that I needed to drop off before the transition at the bottom. This was a problem. The pressure of this drop at this speed, and with our combined weight, could break my skates. It was too late to do anything different and I just went with it. I landed the drop and the skates flexed and complained but held together.  Now I had a brief moment to load them with yet more weight before lifting up at the exact right time to make us weightless up the face of the hill. I wanted to essentially fly up the face of the hill. 

It worked, and we were floating an inch off the ground and at great speed over the surface of the road. In my arms she was weightless, her long dark hair suspended upward and gently waving with our forward motion as we slowed, then slowed some more. All I could do was wait and see if our push was enough. 

We weren’t going to make it. We weren’t going to make it all the way to the top of the hill on our momentum alone. I was saddened by this, I really wanted to make it. I wanted it to be a perfect beautiful thing, but we came up short. 

As I started to make the motion to skate again I felt someone push me from behind. Someone not carrying another person had the momentum to catch me, and push us, and with that the three of us glided over the top of the hill and began to descend. It was fucking beautiful. I could almost see us from outside us, this person’s long fingers pushing on my back, my woman’s hair flowing weightlessly over my shoulder, my feet poised to put power down but all of us frozen in this clutch pose as we came over the top of the hill. I made a mental note to remember this, I thought to myself it might never be better than this. 

And we descended.

The backside of the hill was steep. I was surprised how steep it was. I was also surprised that I was being followed. I was being followed by a human sized plushy toy, a multicolored plushy robot that was also skating. I noticed that each section of the robot was a brightly colored patch of deep plush. The robot plushy followed us peacefully and skillfully. It just followed. I didn’t feel threatened by it.  

Then I realized that the surface below my skates had become plushy material and multicolored, similarly sewn together sections of bright plushy colors. I became aware that I was skating down the front side of the robot plushy that was just following me. 

The deep soft material offered the resistance of snow, of powder, like powder skiing. I switched into powder skiing mode and made my way down the steep surface by descending into its natural resistance. This was deeply familiar to me, a skill it was easy to recall from years of experience. I thought to myself how great life is, how beautiful these movements are. I’d forgetting how much I enjoyed this. 

I could feel the dark flowing hair of the woman I held tight against my chest. I could feel her sharp chin pressed into my shoulder as we navigated through the unknown plushy sections of dark red, then bright blue, then purple, then orange. I didn’t know when we would get to the bottom of the robot. I tried not to think about the bottom of the robot. I just kept making turns as precisely and perfectly as I could—uh.. huh.. uh.. huh… I was perfect in each turn. This was bliss.

In my ear the beautiful dark haired woman whispered to me that we can live in LA for now, but eventually she wants us to live a different life. She said she was happy we are together but she has specific plans. I listened to her breathy voice warm in my ear and I skated, and skated, and skated—precise turn after precise turn through the deep plushy. 

No one is better at this than me, I thought to myself. No one is better at this than me.

I was in an 70’s era house on a small lake. It was a two or three story house, narrow in both directions, and having a small square footprint on the shore. I was on the deck down below on the first floor. The deck was sitting on the water with a chest-high solid wood railing. The railing kept the water out as it seemed the water height was actually higher than the deck. This felt surreal, that the deck was lower than the water and the water was kept out by this worn wooden railing. It felt impossible. I had a sense that something was not right about that.

I was with someone, I don’t recall who, but they wanted me to go swimming. I had a lot of thoughts about this. I wasn’t sure I could gracefully crawl over the railing. It was dark, or dim, as if the whole world were indoors and lit by a large soft spotlight that was coming from across the lake. Artificial light.

There was a wooden slide in the water not far from the deck. The only reason I knew it was a slide was because there was a young girl out there using it. She had a sled. She climbed up onto the structure with the sled and fastened it to the start. There was hardly any pitch to the slide. I was curious how she would propel forward. She jumped onto the sled and it, and her, slowly moved down the slide. She barely made it to the end, then she was  toppled into the water, sled and all. 

She stood up in the dark water revealing that it was only a couple feet deep. This seemed odd to me as well, the whole thing seemed odd to me, but I couldn’t figure out why. I wasn’t going swimming. 

I walked back over the deck and alongside the house, then up a well-worn narrow wooden stairway into a small room like an unfinished attic where all the wall studs are still exposed. The stairway made a couple 90 degree turns at the top like the  roped line at a carnival ride. My Race Inc BMX bike was blocking the top of the stairs. It was elevated off the ground on my bike stand. It was dusty. There was a heavy spider web under the seat extending down the seat tube. I wanted to clear that off. I found a metal rod nearby, but when I looked at the web again it now had a cave woven into it and was likely full of baby spiders, or eggs. I was grossed out by this and wanted to get this over with. I used the metal rod to pull the web off the seat and frame, but it became even larger and thicker, then started to glow with a dark blue light from inside the cave-like center. Further freaked out, I tried harder to dislodge it and tore off the top to reveal a scorpion. I yelled to everyone that it was a scorpion and to get back. It had metal chevron-shaped plates down its back that emitted a blue light from underneath. It jumped down to the floor. 

The room was now a living room, not an attic, with white shag carpet. My step-father, Robert, was in the dinning room area. I shouted at him and pointed to the carpet where the blue glow could be seen down in the shag near his foot. He stomped on it. I was worried the scorpion was padded by the shag and would survive. Robert was looking at me, facing me. He lifted his foot and the glow slowly moved away from us, undercover of the shag. I assumed it was injured. I told Robert to stomp on it again but he stomped backwards while still facing me and kept missing the scorpion. It was as if he couldn’t turn around and look down to direct his feet. He randomly stomped and moved backwards missing the scorpion each time. His was a ridiculous backward stomping like a child whose mind had fully malfunctioned and whose faculties were forgotten. 

The scorpion got away. 

Such a simple thing to do, but like everything in my life, also impossible. 

I woke up from what I thought was a dream at this point. I had an early morning medical appointment. I went to the doctor’s office. The doctor was an older man who seemed annoyed with everything. He put me in a couple different rooms to wait. Then he put me in a room and asked me to turn around. He forcibly bent me over and lifted my shirt to look at the mole I recently had removed from my lower back. He grumbled and pinched it with his fingers saying something under his breath that sounded like he needed to fix this. He pinched it firmer and with more skin and I assumed he was cutting off what Dr Leu had originally done. I was prepared for it to hurt like hell because he hadn’t numbed me, but it didn’t. It was like when Dr Leu does it—I could feel the pressure but no pain. Then he struggled with some stitches. A nurse came in and was telling me that he put one stitch in it, she thought, maybe. I hoped it would look better closed up with a stitch. The doctor left. The nurse left.

I was still thinking about the dream I’d had with the scorpion, and the lake house, and the slide. I decided to go visit my girlfriend, Shannon, at her new job. When I got there I was confused because it was a clothing store, of sorts. Even more confusing was that it was in an old multiplex movie theater. Each theater was brightly lit and the walls were made of beautiful old wood that was finished in clear gloss. It was spectacular. They had added elevated walkways along the walls that went to offices upstairs. The clothes for sale were on the stage where the curtains used to be. I was moving from theater to theater, looking up to the vaulted walkways looking for Shannon. 

I had set my backpack down somewhere and became worried it was lost. 

I finally saw her up above me on a walkway with a small group of co-workers looking down at the stage as if watching a performance. She saw me and motioned that she would come down. I saw my backpack on the stage. It was missing some of my clothes. I went back to the stage I had just come from and found the clothes there. I tried to change my shirt but it wouldn’t come off over my head. It felt like I was wet and so was the shirt. I got it just over my head but it had turned into what felt like Play-Doh or bread dough. I pulled harder on it and it tore away like dough. My skin was doughy as well and pulling away with the shirt like they were partially rolled together. I felt awful, gross. I was sure someone would see me doing this. My skin was coming off.

Shannon and one of her co-workers found me. Shannon was taller, nearly my height. Her co-worker said my skin was gross. Shannon didn’t say anything. I still had the dough-shirt stuck to my wrists, unable to get it free.  I tried to make small talk with the two of them. 

Shannon alluded to our relationship not working. Then she said she had just started this job, which I knew, and wasn’t sure she could make it on her own, which I also knew. I jokingly said that she probably had offers from her co-workers. Offers, in this context, meant other men that would take care of her in exchange for her sexuality. She said, yes, one—but she didn’t want to trade on her body like that just yet. I was devastated and felt the ache of heartbreak for first time in a long time. I knew all was lost here. I struggled to contain the total collapse.

I still thought I was awake from a previous dream. I was in a lot of emotional pain and confused. The co-worker was looking at me in barely hidden disgust. I couldn’t find a frame of reference for myself or what was happening. Where was I? What time or context is this? Somewhere in my mind it occurred to me that this didn’t feel like the new job that Shannon had started—something was wrong. The building also seemed wrong. 

Then it became clear that it didn’t really matter. I was unable to touch my own skin.  If I did, my skin would pull away in an unpredictable way. I was physically coming apart in taffy-like strips. I took my backpack and walked away, I could hear them talking about all this as I left. Then their voices became distant.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I was trying to sleep while the plane was still boarding passengers. I was in the middle of the plane laying across and empty seat next to me. I was aware that I’d have to get up when someone came for the seat but I really didn’t want to. I kept peaking out one eye as people milled past. I could see the top of the movie screen over the seats in front of me. It was the type of large movie screen that everyone on the plane used to watch, or tried to, back when everyone watched the same movie on a flight. 

I noticed that all the people milling past me were young girls and recalled that the few occupied seats to my left were also young girls. I tried to go to sleep but some girls stopped at my row and I had to get up. I collected my blankets and moved toward the back of the plane.  The back of the plane started to open up and on the right side, at the rear, there was brightly lit corner with no seats at all. I went and stood there watching the plane slowly fill with passengers. The seats all faced the back of the plane and I could see that most of the seats were occupied by girls. Someone yelled out a phrase, like a command or a chant and everyone in the plane chanted back one word, then they raised their arms up over their heads and crossed their forearms. Every person on the plane, regardless of what else they were wearing, had a long sleeve shirt with sleeves that were bright white from the elbow to the wrist. They also had white gloves on. In this way, the entire area in front of me turned white as they crossed their arms over their head and hit their own forearms against one another.  When they put their arms back down everything looked normal, as it was before.  

If I was uncertain before, there was now no doubt that the entire plane was filled with Girl Scouts, or some organization like that. Myself and the crew were the only people not of this order. 

I quickly tried to get my phone out, and camera turned on, in case they did this chanting thing again. I thought this was going to be the most amazing photograph, this bright white sea of synchronized movement. I tried to get the phone lens to be wide enough to capture the whole group. I had to back up more. Behind me was an unused hospitality bar that I maneuvered around further back into the darkness. Now the arch over the bar was in the photo. I tried a longer lens through the arch and stepped back. The girls didn’t do the chant again. 

Through the archway in the back corner of the plane it was night and I was floating down a calm river or waterway on a platform. It was dark as if there was no sky but a ceiling somewhere up above that was hidden by the dark. There was a cocktail bar on the platform and earlier I had met with Gerard and Liz, though separately. Liz was nearly flirting with me. Both our arms were on the table and your fingers nearly touched in the middle. Without moving my hand I stroked her fingers with mine very lightly. This was the first time I’d ever touched her in such a way but I was confident that she was signaling me to. I was having strong feelings for her but also aware that I was having these feeling and wondering why, or if they were real. I couldn’t figure out the context of time and place in this moment, or my life’s circumstances. She reacted negatively and got cross with me. I had misread the situation. I left her and went to the front of the platform. 

At the front of the platform there was a separate round platform floating just ahead. On that platform was a large round air fryer. It was an air fryer but also like a wok with a lid on it. I lifted the lid.  About a third of the space inside was occupied by cooked onion strings. There were a couple people around me, we were all trying to figure out what to do with this. I said that we have to do something with these cooked onion strings so we can get a full new batch of onion strings cooking; otherwise we’d not have enough. Also, I was concerned that we’d arrive at our destination before they had time to cook. As a possible solution, I ate a few of the onion strings then resized I can’t eat them all without getting sick. I didn’t have a plate or anywhere to put them. I decided to move them against the wall of the air fryer and just know that they will get over cooked. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they will be the super crispy ones that everyone likes the most. With that, I filled the air fryer with a healthy amount of frozen onion strings and closed the lid hoping they would be done in time. 

I could see the archway ahead in darkness. It was a distant but visible warm glow on the black watery horizon, through which was the airplane. I didn’t know if the platform would get there too soon or not. There was nothing I could do at this point but wait and see. 

There was a promotion for, and with, Ken Roczen, the World Champion motocross racer. In order for it to happen it needed to be outlined on the paper in front of me. Only, the paper wasn’t paper and it wasn’t digital either. At times it felt like white semi-translucent plastic. It had a couple holders sticking out perpendicular shaped like segments of ball point pens. If you pulled on the holders a piece would come out in the shape of mountain, a rough triangle with the point on top, and a bit to the left. It bothered me to take this out, it felt like things were getting worse when it was taken out. [Someone] was trying to help me but it wasn’t going well. I couldn’t understand how the promotion worked, what the words on the surface of this paper were supposed to say. I could move the words around but it didn’t seem like I had the correct words or enough of them. I didn’t know how to connect what was in front of me with Ken Roczen but it felt important to do so, and quickly. 

John Wendl was there and he wanted to go for a bike ride. We were in San Luis Obispo area and that was comforting. There were a couple other people in our biking group. We were riding fast down a neighborhood street, all pedaling fast like we were racing, I was in the back of the pack. We headed down a street then made a right off the sidewalk and up a dirt hillside that already had many bike trails up and down it. We were all carrying a lot of speed and the initial climb resulted in an uphill jump. I wasn’t sure how much air I’d get on this. I wasn’t on my own bike but it felt comfortable. As I left the face of the jump I could see Wendl waiting for me up ahead, I decided to whip the bike more than I usually would—more than I ever have. I did so and the rear wheel was up over my head. I pulled it back just in time. I large whip for a small jump. I was extremely proud of myself.  

That was the end of the fun part of the ride, now I knew I was in for a long climb. The hill was so large that you couldn’t see the top of it—it was starting to feel like a mountain. There were many trails, many options, all of them a bit too soft and steep for a mountain bike and I regretted losing Wendl as he probably knew the ridable way up. Lots of people were coming down, many of them on motorcycles. One of them looked at me rudely as if to say, “What are you doing riding up and on a bicycle?” I chose a trial that veered off to the right in hopes of avoiding any more confrontation then realized I could never peddle up this for any sustained period and got off to walk. I put the bike seat on my shoulder, it fit perfectly there and I got ready for a very long climb on foot. John was long gone as was whomever else was in our group. As usual, with my fitness, I was unobserved, in the back, and would catch up with them at some waypoint. 

This climb was something like the one up Aspen mountain, which is 4000ft. I walked it much like I did back then, meditatively putting one foot in front of the other and not thinking about how far I’d come or how far I had to go. As such, the top just happened. 

There was an old hut at the top the size of a small house. It was light blue with white roof trim, all of it aged many decades and from another time. There were old wooden tables out front in the patchy grass like a ski resort in the summertime. Likewise, they served some food up there. There were young kids running around. 

As I walked away from the hut I came upon a white cemented platform that had long ago been painted but was now only showing that it once was. Bolted into the platform was three or four black metal hoist-like structures that extended out over the  edge of what I could only describe as the edge of the world. On the end of each hoist was a black plastic pulley or wheel with nylon straps wrapped through it and then strung up and over the hoist arm in tangles. The hoists were made of 1.5” square tube iron and had extra extensions off the bases where they bolted over the edge and down to the side—though I couldn’t see that without looking over the edge and I didn’t want to do that. Just getting near the edge was terrifying. I say this was the edge of the world because there was no telling how far down it went. I couldn’t see anything below except for what seemed like the a mist or the top of a cloud. 

Matt Miller was there beside me. He was excited to show me how this worked. He took hold of two of the nylon straps and wrapped each one around the palm of his hands and swung out over the endless void. The nylon straps, all wound around the pulley wheel and themselves, unravelled in such a way that he slowly descended into the void like this was a rope swing over a river and he was gone down and out of sight. Then, unexplainably, he was back by my side and eager for me to try it. I tried it without thinking but my straps got tangled. I was only lowered about 10 feet. Matt was annoyed and pulled me back to the edge of the platform. I backed away from the edge in absolute terror. It occurred to me, only then, that if the rope got tangled on the way down, say somewhere between 50 and 4000 feet, I’d neither be able to climb back up or drop to the bottom. I’d be alive only as long as I could hold onto the nylon strap. 

I tried to explain this to Matt but he wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted it was easy and fun and was mildly annoyed with me in a way I am familiar from all our childhood adventures. I crawled to the edge of the platform again, this time acutely aware of the height—much more so than before—and felt lightheaded as I neared the edge. I thought I might pass out from the sensation of height. My muscles hurt and failed at the same time. The idea of doing this was almost certainly life ending. Again I tried to explain to Matt the risk/reward ratio on this was stupid. Why would we do this? I explained that the straps would have to untangle is just the right way for it to work and the odds on that were horrible. I went on to explain that if they untangled too fast I would drop and have to somehow keep hold when they did grab. He bowed his head in disappointment. 

He took two straps in his hands and swung out like a gymnast and flipped over gracefully with his arms extended out. He didn’t descend at all, the straps didn’t let go. He did a few tricks and then swung back to the platform edge but on the other side. It was only then that I realized there was an other side, another platform about 30 feet away. When he landed on the other side the infinite void in front of me was gone, filled in by what was now the continuous aged cement surface that stretch from the grassy edge were I sat to a similar grassy edge on the other side. The void that was there now felt like it existed because some god-like eraser simply erased the middle of the cement platform revealing the infinite below. There was a white picket fence on the far side, the other side, and the hills continued off beyond it into the mountainous but beautiful summer landscape. 

Matt walked slowly back across the platform toward me. He shrugged and smiled. It was like a carnival ride and now it was closed, turned off. The black metal hoists that never looked like they could hold my weight in the first place were still there, only now they seemed purposeless. I poked the pulley wheel of one with my finger, as if to see if it was real. 

I am in an indoor pavilion. It is all on ground level with several quaint businesses all open to a central gathering area. There are a lot of warm wood surfaces and a glass ceiling that lets in a lot of beautiful sunlight. There is a cafe, of sorts, where a couple of musicians are performing for a dozen small tables sparsely populated with people having drinks. I am sitting at one of the tables in the back. I’m with a woman who is like my wife, and a person I don’t know, and also she is Katy Perry. Katy Perry isn’t exactly Katy Perry, she is more petite and her face has angular features—but she is still Katy Perry. 

I have to go to the restroom. I leave the table and navigate an obvious path to the restrooms. The door opens to a nondescript hallway with few options and I follow it. It ends at a door. I open it and enter another type of building then navigate the hallways there. This leads to a restaurant kitchen and I make my way through it and out the back hallway. The door out the back hallway open to an enormous outdoor greenhouse where a large tree has fallen over and its trunk is hallowed out. To get to the other side I crawl into the tree and downward. It is tight, claustrophobic, I am aware that if it were even a little tighter I would have failed here. When I exit the tree at the bottom I turn right and head down a sleek futuristic hallway. There is a door and I open it. Each door opens to a new type of environment that, at first, seems  like it will be unnavigable but, through a combination of limited paths and intuition, are easily navigable to the next area. Eventually, it is clear that I am at the restroom and I am able to pee in a urinal. 

On the way back I become aware how unlikely it is that I will find my way back. I recall the complex labyrinth that lead me here and it seems impossible to make my way back through it in reverse. Still, I soon find the fallen tree. It is too small now to crawl through the center. There is a path along to the left of it that leads up the incline. I am much relived for this, I didn’t think I’d make it back through the husked out hull of the tree again.

When I get back to the cafe there is a group of tourists dancing at the edge of the cafe. The band blocks my return to our table at one end of the room. The line of dancing people blocks me at the only other possible way in. I wait for them to finish. They have large, round, soft butts, and they shake them in unison in such a way that no one could fit between them. I have no choice but to wait for the song to end. 

It ends, and I notion to them that they did a fine thing there. The mood of the cafe seems to agree and everyone generally throws energy at them that says, “That line dancing big booty thing you did there was awesome.” 

I squeak between two of them and make my way back to our table. Someone is just leaving the table having talked to Katy Perry. I ask her what that was about. From her response it seems like the person wanted to talk to her, or ask her something unrelated to her celebrity—they didn’t recognize her. I said, “That must be really nice for you?” She nods but I continue explaining my point—that interacting with someone who doesn’t know who she is must be really nice. I am genuinely empathetic. I am realizing how odd that must be after so many years of stardom. It must be refreshing and grounding to interact with other people as just another person, and not as Katy Perry. She nods as I continue to belabor this point. I’m really proud of myself for thinking I’ve found this inner empathy for a celebrity, I feel like I’ve really done something good here. Idiot.

We get up to leave and end up in an interior parking garage pick-up area. There are few people here. I realize that the androgynous person with Katy is now jealous of something. They pull me close and start to kiss me. It is a closed-mouth kiss on my lips. They hold my head still and firm against their lips and start to rotate us around in circles. They make a humming-kissing sound like a grandmother does when kissing her grandchildren, but this goes on and on and on with the two of us spinning in circles in place. It is getting ridiculous and people in our group have lost interest. They start to depart in their cars and still I am locked in this circular kissing embrace. 

When they let go of me it is only the three of us—Katy Perry, the companion, and myself. Everyone else has gone. Despite the spectacle of the eternal circular kiss, it is clear that Katy Perry is interested in me. She and I talk without talking. We converse in our minds about all manner of things and experience a large chunk of time together in a brief moment. We are then in wonder and adoration for each other, missing each other, pining for each other—as if we have been in wanting of one another for too long. 

The companion is now gone, I don’t know where they went. 

Katy and I are alone, which is both fabulous and terrifying. Terrifying only because I don’t know how to get us out of here. I can’t remember where I parked my car, or if I brought my own car. I realize I can use my phone to order us a ride to anywhere. My phone is not my phone, though. It is narrow, and skinny, and the operating system is standard text that I can’t read without reading glasses. I realize this is not my phone and start to panic slightly. There is a sense that the phone is the only way out of here, there is no ‘next anything’ without it. I touch it, I flick at it, I try everything. It does nothing familiar. 

On the surface of this I am frazzled and confused. Deeper down I recognize this as the usual issue with my phone in this circumstance. These two levels of awareness cannot reconcile and I’m left to be deeply stressed and lost. On some level I am as sad as I possibly can be, I want the world to be simpler—I want for my ability to fix things to be more applicable in this situation. There is an awareness that all the things I do know don’t apply here. There is no way to leave the parking garage pick-up area.

I look at Katy Perry. She is unfazed by any of this.

We were on the road. We were searching, I don’t know what for. My dad was driving, it feels like he was always driving. The road was paved, but it shouldn’t have been. We moved smoothly over it. There was nothing smooth about us. My uncle, my dad’s brother, was in the car. The presence of my wife, but not her, was there as well. My cousins, my uncle’s boys, they were there too. 

In this way we rolled along the road slowly, all of us looking out the windows with no expectation of seeing what we were looking for. On the left side of the road the dirt hillside steeped up sharply and prevented any thoughts from venturing off in that direction. On the other side of the road we passed house after house, all tucked nicely into their rolling landscape of green grass and neat  tidy fences. Everything was so clean. So clean. 

I looked at my cousin and saw the sadness, the inevitability of our fates. My dad was awash with drunken swagger and his brother was stewing in quiet solitude, also full of drink. The cousins looked at each other. Everything was empty. The car was missing all its finishes like the back of a cargo van from the 70’s where the ribs and construction were painted over white—spot welding circles and all. 

Then I spotted him—Owen, my nephew, the thing we were searching for. He was stupidly trying to make himself smaller in the intersection of two fences, but he could not possibly hide in all the neatness. Two sections of perfect fencing came to a corner and Owen, all six foot one inch of him was curling his shoulders forward, trying to sink back into the corner. But I spotted him, I made him, I called it out as we rolled past and slowly all the drunken travelers in our car responded. My dad stopped the car. He started to reverse it. 

Owen moved like an elastic creature, moving over the fence and then from one yard to the next. His body bent, and curved unnaturally, over tall wood fences and down into yards out of sight. He was moving in the opposite direction, trying to evade us.

My dad continued backing up, down the road, a reverse chase. I jumped out thinking I’d be better on foot. Then everyone jumped out. Owen was hiding now, no longer moving, it was hard to know where he went. 

We were all spread out on the road, confused and searching. My dad had an expanding contraption that he expertly unfolded on the lawn of a nearby house. It was green. It resembled a portable play pen but grew into a large crooked box of an unknown material. It was a trap. The idea was to trap Owen in it. I knew this would work, that the trap would be successful. So I kind of gave up on the chase.

There was an oxygen tank in the car, the kind that sits alongside someone’s bed when they need added oxygen. It was in the road now and rolling toward my dad. He was frustrated, angry in a way that I was too familiar with. I was worried the oxygen tank might explode, it seemed like it shouldn’t be jostled around. My dad picked it up and threw it with his crazy angry gorilla strength. At this point, I knew we were all fucked. 

I watched the oxygen tank fly up the road past our parked van and hit a wall, then bounce back toward all of us. It hit the ground behind the van, in the midst of our group of searchers. Layers of it broke off and smoke spilled out. I knew it was going to explode. 

My wife was trying to crawl to me on the road surface, to safety. I motioned to her to keep crawling, faster, but to stay low.  Then the tank exploded and the chrome outer layers of it blew into shrapnel that flew straight upward. I was grateful for that. I thought the hot metal parts would fly horizontally into us and cut us to pieces. I watched the explosion lift up into the sky and begin to descend down toward me in long slow arcs of smokey trails. As they came toward me their speed slowed and I batted them away effortlessly. The oxygen tank issue was resolved. 

It was time to leave the road, the car, the whole pursuit, and get somewhere safe. I no longer cared what happened to Owen. 

I was trying to make my way to the Main Street, to where shops and people are. I am carrying my twin baby girls in my arms—but one is noticeably older than the other by a year or so. They both say different things to me, both appropriate for their age. They are getting heavier. 

I am moving quickly to the safety of the city street with a naked baby girl in each arm.  I am aware of  what they each say and I am in tears, but I need to get everyone to safety. Carrying them is warming me, connecting me, I am swooned by their simple love at this young age. 

My mom is walking alongside me in our group of people. We are all trying to get to the place, to the place where we will be able to rest and be safe.  That place is just ahead, it is Main Street in Pasadena. My arms are getting very tired and I have to give one of the girls to my mom to carry. She takes one of them without expression or words and we move on. I wrap both arms around my one naked baby girl and look toward the corner. 

It is right there. I am pretty sure we are going to make it. 

I was in San Francisco and my mom and sister were visiting. We went to the public library, which also housed the local public radio. It was a beautiful place, you could buy records and books there too—I guess it was a lot like a Barnes & Nobel. I was using one of their desks to do a design project while mom and Tami looked around, wandered. 

I was making a photoshop composite, a background of some sort onto which I wanted to place a photographic portrait. I had some photos and I was trying to figure out how to scan them into my laptop. The photos were in a very old leather dice-rolling container, the kind that came with Yahtzee or backgammon wherein the outside was leather and the inside was velvet. The photos were actually part of this container, they lined it and were part of its deteriorating structure. The leather was hard and brittle and as I gently pulled the layers of photos out the container crumbled.  The photos were black and white but tinted by time different shades of red and orange. They were portraits of various women, women I knew. One of them was Wendy. 

Under the desk I was working at was a large printer. I lifted the lid to see if it was also a scanner. It was. I was very happy about this discovery. I put one of the photos face down on the glass and closed the lid on the curled up photo. I then became aware that a woman was watching me work, looking over my shoulder. I didn’t know who it was, but her presence made me realize that I can’t use these photos of women from my past. This would make her angry. I lifted the lid to remove the photo and it wasn’t there. I looked all around the scanner, on the floor under it and behind it. I was on my hands and knees desperately looking for it. It had vanished. I was shocked by this, as one would be. I was trying to communicate to the woman and to others around me the horrible thing that had just happened, the horrible unbelievable thing that had just happened. The library was a quiet place and I didn’t want to make too large a fuss, but still I was very upset. 

I sat down at the desk again and realized all the photos were gone except for one. It was the red-orange discolored image of Wendy. It looked like the kind of image that comes out of a photo booth. Just having this image on the desk was problematic so I put it away. 

I went to the restroom. It was in another building, out the door to the left of me. Outside the library it was a beautiful sunny warm day and the light was slightly brighter than any real world light. The bathroom was not at all nice—worse than the roadside rest stop variety, and I was happy to be out of there quickly. My mom and Tami were waiting for me outside. As I looked at them I could feel my body filling with dread. I asked them, why are you here? Why are you not watching my laptop and things in the library? They shrugged unknowingly. I was panicked and could already imagine returning to the library to find all my things gone. I could also see how this was going to affect my life for the near future, and a dark depression started to creep in on me. 

The library was no longer a short walk between buildings but a place we needed to drive to. I rushed mom and Tami to my mom’s car. It was a little Fiat-like thing that you see in old Italian movies. Mom drove and as we got near the library it occurred to me that she might be pranking me, that maybe she picked up all my things before leaving. I told her to slow down, to  stop, that we are at the library, but she did not. She wasn’t listening to me. I realized then that she wasn’t aware enough to prank me and my stuff was likely lost. I had to jump from the moving car or we would have missed the library altogether. I opened the door and jumped out running so as not to fall. 

Of course my laptop and everything I had was gone. The young guy working the counter shrugged and seemed to have no idea who I was or that I was ever there. He wanted me to fill out a police report for insurance purposes. He had one on the ready, it was a yellow legal pad of paper with words pre-written and brown boxes where the facts were supposed to be filled in. He said I could also fill out a report later at the police station. I was beside myself with both anger and depression. I searched the interior of the library feverishly hoping someone had stashed it quickly seeing that I had returned. I extended my search to the bushes outside and around the back of the library. I ended up in an area that homeless people had been using as a bathroom and found abandoned bicycles and parts.

I felt like my stuff was nearby, that it wasn’t too late to find it or the person who had it. I went back into the library to find them. I scanned all the people looking for bulges in their backpacks or bags. I renewed my search behind pillow cushions in the reading area. The young guy that worked the front desk came into the reading area and pinched his nose closed with his fingers to indicate that something smelled bad. He said it was me, that I smelled like urine and that I had to leave. I said, “Now you are going to kick me out! You!” He shrugged like it was inevitable, meant to be. He followed me outside where another much larger man watched me carefully. I could tell they were a team of sorts and that I’d not be able to go back inside. 

I stood on the sidewalk in front of the library and contemplated my fate. I had no wallet, no phone, no laptop and no money. I had recently got that laptop after the previous one was stollen and the thought of having to set up another one depressed me immensely. I felt hopeless, like I had lost at life. I had no way to contact anyone to come pick me up. I didn’t know how to walk home or where home was. I had an old phone with me that had been erased to be returned as a trade-in. I looked at it briefly and saw the welcome message of a restored phone. It was not tied to any account and could do nothing but call 911. It wasn’t even an iPhone, but some foreign looking thing. I could do nothing but walk forward. The realization that I had no communication tools and would not be found was overwhelming. 

I walked down the street. After a while, I came to an automotive garage in an industrial area. There was a guy there working on a couple of vintage motorcycles. One of them was a Honda, the hipster kind that people love to restore. It had a gaudy exhaust pipe on it. A woman came out from behind a storage container. She seemed to work there though she looked too young and maybe too clean. She talked to the guy about the bike. He said she should ride them more often. He jumped on the Honda and spun around the cement floor like a circus performer and was gone. 

I was sitting in this elevated storage container just outside the shop with my legs dangling over the edge. She came over to talk to me. I wasn’t in the mood to talk. She was young, simplistically pretty, and stocky. She wore brightly colored leggings with stripes that accentuated her hips. She sat down on my left, her leg lightly touched mine once she got settled up on the ledge. 

I explained to her what had happened. There was some issue with noise, or my voice wasn’t working well, but I had to repeat things because she couldn’t hear it, or understand it. At one point she laughed at me because she thought I said I was 11 years old. I corrected her and said, “No, I have twin 11 year olds.” She was comforted by this—she felt I was not going to hit on her, or be interested in her in an inappropriate way. 

She thought I was destitute or maybe homeless. She said I smelled like urine. I apologized for that. I said, “No, I’m a Microsoft Employee.” She didn’t hear me or understand so I said, “I am a Microsoft Executive” thinking that the word executive would make it clear how not homeless I was. She nodded and said she understood. I was beginning to enjoy her company, and the look and feel of her. The longer we sat side by side the more familiar and comforting she became. Her presence was becoming soothing, her unadorned look was becoming beautiful, nearly emotional. I realized I was gently stroking her leg while we sat there and she was leaning into me like an old friend. I was aware that she had transformed from someone I was not attracted to into someone I was deeply attracted to. I could imagine our future intimacy. 

The old phone vibrated in my pocket. I was startled back to the circumstances of the day and struggled to find the pocket the phone was in. I thought that my life depended on answering this call. I thought it might be my wife, or someone, having found a way to contact me through this old phone. I barely got it out of the pocket in time. It was not a call. It was the phone sending me a message. It asked me if I’d like to use “Find My” to track my devices. I was shocked. It must have noticed that I was no longer near my devices and automatically sent a notice. I pressed the screen and it presented a map of San Francisco. I could see a clump of little orange icons moving very fast through the city heading north. Each icon represented one of my things—laptop, phone, wallet, etc. 

The girl and I agreed it was moving too fast to be in a vehicle driving and that the software must be playing back the recent journey of the devices. We were both enthralled and amazed. Then I was filled with anger at the type of world we lived in as I watched my things move across the map. I used my fingers to zoom in on the map and started to recognize the neighborhood that my things were approaching. They made a series of turns on different roads and then finally came to a stop. I zoomed in more and realized it was an electronics store. They were selling my laptop. I was furious. Then I thought I could go there and get my laptop. It was very far away, on the other side of town. I wasn’t sure how I could remember all the stops they were going to make as they sold each item. I assumed each of my things would be sold in a different location, a different stop. 

I zoomed in further and the cluster of icons became an icon of a vehicle. I zoomed further and it rendered a simplistic 3D render of an RV, a small older motorhome. Of course, I said, fucking trash people. As I expressed this out loud I realized I had exposed my prejudice toward these people to my new friend. I zoomed in to see if the software would show a license plate. It would not. I was zoomed in too close now and I kept losing the RV as it sped through town. My camera would go through the geometry of the 3D world and get lost. I tried to zoom back out. 

There was a commotion in front of us. As we both looked up we saw a model kitchen set—like you’d see at IKEA, but only one, and in the garage. In the kitchen, my co-workers Matt and Dave were making a dinner, and making a big show of it. They were shirtless and clearly they thought it was funny that, because of the height of the island countertop, they appeared to be naked to the audience. There was another life-of-the-party shirtless guy. He was egging them on. He was very excited about the antics of Matt and Dave. He was dancing and pointing. He pursed his lips and pointed at them, at the two seemingly naked cooks. He loved them. But who wouldn’t?

I was younger, early 20s maybe. I was with a girlfriend and her family. Her father was driving the car and we were in the back. I was sleepy and we cuddled and faded in and out of sleep. I don’t remember being aware of where we were going. The light in the car was faint, dim, it was a night drive for the most part. We were close and quiet and contented. She was soft against me.

It was dinner time. We had arrived at the house and everyone was moving plates and food around to ready us for dinner. My girlfriend had two younger brothers, they might have been 8 and 12 or something. They were at the table and ready to eat. I could feel the presence of the mother but I could not see her. Her father sat at the table waiting patiently for things to settle. There was also a youngest sister, maybe 6 years old. The family asked me to pick a seat. As the guest, it seemed like I had the honor of choosing my own seat—this felt like a family tradition of sorts. I looked at the youngest sister and said that I would give my choice to her—that she could choose whatever seat she liked. She beamed at this and the family stirred a bit. I knew what I was doing. I wanted to impress these people and I knew how to do it. I wasn’t overconfident, I wasn’t so sure I would be successful, but I was glad for the response to this tiny show of gallantry.

I recognized that the father’s expression was neutral, hard to read, maybe I hadn’t succeeded there. I was asked to get wine glasses for my girlfriend and myself. We were having white wine. The wine glasses I found in the cabinet were dusty, very dusty. The mother suggested some regular thick-glassed tumblers. I took those instead and placed them on the table. I became aware that we were the only two drinking alcohol and that we might not be old enough. I wasn’t sure if I was making a mistake or not. I poured the wine and tasted it. It was like magic on the back of my throat. It changed the feeling of the world and shone in bright contrast to the overall mood of this world. I was very unsure of this, aware it was going to show on my face, and I set the glass down trying to hide my feelings.

At some point in the meal I suggested that I could have helped with the driving—I could have, and should have, offered to drive part of the way here. The mother suggested we go back and redo the drive so I can help and everyone laughed little bit. In suggesting this I somehow communicated to everyone my years of experience with this drive, this lake.

The next day we were standing in the laundry room looking out the screen covered windows to the property outside. It was a large room and the sunlight dappled through the trees all around the property before falling into the room. My girlfriend’s father was there and a few others. One of the others was a tall black man I didn’t know but who was very freindly.

I looked out the windows into the beautiful light and was reminded of all the hundreds of weekends I had spent on this lake. I started a conversation with the group that was not at all a conversation, in hindsight.

I asked if they remembered the dirt roads that used to bring us to the TriCounty Boat & Ski Club, or the dry oak tree shaded hill where we stored our boats during the weekdays, or the smell of BBQs all around at the end of the day and the drunken laughter of those cheating at Uno as it started to get dark? I really expected everyone to remember these things and bathe in the nostalgia of childhood with me. Like my other efforts to charm the father, this didn’t work. I knew he was from that time, and that he knew the things I was talking about, but still, no response.

The tall black man opened the screen door and went outside. We all watched him. He walked through the pools of summer sunlight that come through the trees. He walked across the bare spots on the ground where we used to park the boats.

I was in the World of Tanks, but on foot. Matt, Bill, and Mike were also there. I could sense that Dave and Tim and others were somewhere in the village but I didn’t know where. The village was empty of people and sparsely populated with rural buildings—farmhouses, barns, a train depot. A few of the buildings were partially demolished, by tanks I presume. I could hear tank fire in the distant hills but I had a sense that they weren’t coming here. It was very sunny, bright, and I had to use my hand as a visor over my eyes occasionally when the sun would reflect off a building.

Pamela Anderson was there, the original Pamela Anderson from Tool Time with Tim Allen. She had on the overalls and the tool belt. She didn’t say anything. She awarded Matt a package of paper towels. On one of the paper towel rolls was written something that would allow Matt to unequivocally win at World of Tanks. We didn’t see her give it to him, we just knew it had happened. No one said anything about it, but it was a big deal and we all knew it.

We were standing in the middle of a wide street. Bill had the package of paper towels at his feet and was starting to open it. Without speaking, Matt communicated that Bill had better not ruin the paper towel roll by pulling it out by the cardboard center and telescoping it up from the package. We all quietly acknowledge that this was something Bill would do. I wasn’t sure which roll in the package had the writing on it or if the writing was on the outside of the roll. All of us were jealous that Matt had been gifted these rolls but we were trying to be happy for him. Bill was insulted that we all thought he would intentionally ruin the rolls and he walked off down the road. Mike took a few steps in the same direction as Bill and then stopped. He had his hands on his hips. He stood there for a long time watching Bill walk away. We could all hear Grodin’s thoughts in our own minds but we couldn’t remember them. No one said anything.

I turned around to look at Matt but he was gone, so was the package of paper towels. I knew what house he was in and I could sense he was there. I felt he was going to be okay. Mike and Dave and I walked into town. It was an abandoned WWII European town with dirt roads, or cobblestone. On the corner of one of the buildings there was a chrome toilet paper roll hanger. It was the modern day kind with a spring-loaded holder. Every building in town had these installed on them. It was clear Bill had done this. There was a new roll of toilet paper on each holder and written on each roll in fancy script it said, “Thine own self be true.”

I was sitting out on the back patio of a house that Bill owned. Tim was there to my right. Tim was talking but no sound could be heard. Bill had a golf green in the backyard, it was quite large, like a real golf green. The back of the green rolled upward a bit then turned to rougher taller grass. Beyond that the landscape turned up steeply as the house was set against a hill. 

Bill was trying to trim the tall grass around the green with a weedwacker. It was clear that that wasn’t the preferred tool for the job. He was getting frustrated with the results. The weedwacker was hard to control on the angled ground that surrounded the perfectly manicured green and it occasionally bit into the smooth  surface of the putting green. This kept happening. I was aware that things were getting worse in this regard and the green was becoming increasingly scared with the uncontrollable lashing of the weed whacker. It was clear that things were getting worse, not better. With each new slash into the delicate pristine putting green I could sense Bill’s mounting frustration. Then things took a turn and the slashes became intentional, the putting green was being destroyed purposefully. Then the weed whacker was thrown away into the distance and Bill was no longer there.  

Tim was still talking but could not be heard. It was like his audio was being connected to a different system, routed to speakers elsewhere. The putting green was all but destroyed, only scant bits of green grass were left. Then I heard a motocross bike coming hard and fast. I knew it was Bill. He hit the putting green hard on the brakes and leaned into the soft muddy surface carving a perfect berm through it and spraying bits of grass and mud into the air behind him as he wicked on full throttle in visceral anger.  He did circular laps off the putting green then back into it, each time the tracks through the green got deeper and more gnarly. This went on for a long time until the putting green and the entire area around it was destroyed into a muddy motocross turn on a national track at the end of a long weekend of racing—smoldering deep grooves of mud, the end result of vicious racing. 

I walked west to the edge of Bill’s property. The dirt road there ended at the edge of a steep decent into the valley below. The earth, the hillside, that descended down below the road was quilted like a comforter, surreal and not like any real world terrain. In my mind, I was imagining what it would be like to ride my motocross bike down it. How would I survive that, how would I navigate it. I was visualizing it in my mind as I looked at it. I couldn’t decide if I was ultra skilled and could do it beautifully or if I’d be quickly killed. It was hard to tell, both seemed possible. 

To the south I could see that the rolling hills made a perfect motocross track. Dozens of riders were riding there on a perfect track, just the right moisture, sand, dirt, jumps, turns. It was really perfect and I could see it. I was so wanting to ride there. It was the kind of track I always wanted as a kid. I could imagine myself riding my new bike there. I became aware that I had a brand new CR 250F that I had not yet ridden. I was hesitant to get it dirty despite the allure of the perfect track. 

Then there was an enormous noise in the distance behind me. It was the start of motocross race. I was standing at the western edge of the road. On the east side of that road was Bill’s property, the house, the grounds, the putting green. When I turned around this enormous field of racers charged past and to the north along the road. It was amazing and intense. So much speed. The road made a left turn around the hill that was the back of Bill’s destroyed putting green. The road then made a dangerous left turn and descended into the valley. All the racers charged this turn and many overshot it, leaping unexpectedly off the edge of the corner and down into who-knows-what. I was terrified for them. I thought that some must have died doing this. 

As the last of racers past me and the sound of them faded, a woman pulled up on a different kind of motorcycle. It was a road bike, low to the ground and longer. She was naked. She came to stop just past me and looked back over her shoulder at me. Her ass on the seat was perfect. The small of her back arched slightly above her ass and long legs extended down the side of the bike. I got on the back behind her excited for her skin against my clothing. We continued down the road and made the left turn that then descended into the valley. There were large puddles of water that spanned the road. We drove over them without disturbing them much, if at all. I was anxious as we approached them because I know how they can affect a bike at speed but she and her bike glided over them and we went faster. At some point the world became very clean and mechanical with large smooth surfaces. The road became a perfectly smooth cement aqueduct with angled walls. We drove under large featureless structures and all the light became green and yellow. All the surfaces were smooth but they reflected nothing. Large spans of still water on the ground continued to appear and we navigated them the same way as before. 

I was extremely excited about the sensual feeling of her body against mine and the feeling of her muscles moving against me as she operated the bike. I wanted her. 

I just had a dream. I was in a busy restaurant waiting for a table. Matt came in with a small entourage of followers, one of which was Dave. I said, “Hey! Did you make it to the top?” Dave quickly silenced me by shaking his head as if the question was not appropriate. Dave said Matt didn’t need to go to the top, that he decided it wasn’t necessary, like that kind of thing was for more common people, not for Matt. Matt was greeting people in the restaurant, shaking hands. When he got to me I could see that he was transformed. He had jet black shaggy thick hair and a sizable black beard, as if he’d been marooned somewhere for many months. He looked to be about 20 years younger.  He hugged me and then moved on to greet other people. Dave gave me a knowing look as of to say, “See, do you understand now?” I didn’t understand. I was amazed by the deep rich blackness of Matt’s hair and beard. As he moved through the restaurant I thought, things will never be the same now. I looked at Dave, he was nodding at me as if to say, at least you got that right.