Friday, March 17, 2017

Dream 3.17.17

Just had this crazy dream that, after my wife kissed me goodbye and told me to have a good day (in real life), I got up to turn on the lights but the power was out. In the dream I called after my wife but wasn’t sure whether she had already left the house, because she didn’t answer. I rushed to my daughter's room to look out of the window and saw that my wife was already in her vehicle getting ready to pull off.

I woke up again, from that dream into another dream, where I heard the fuse blow. I got up to turn on the lights and they weren’t working.

I woke up again, still in a dream, though I thought I was awake for real, and felt something in the room with me. I looked up and saw the shadow of my fluffy cat enter the room because I had left the bedroom door open. I got up to close the door and tried to turn on the lights but the power was out. My short haired tabby was in the doorway looking past me at the ceiling where the fan was. But I didn’t get the idea she was looking at the fan, but something else…

I woke up from that dream (and I think for real this time) felt something in the room with me, like a ghost or something, and started praying. I fell back to sleep, and in that in-between state, remember feeling paranoid, like something in the room was watching me and I didn’t want to get out of bed. Instead, I imagined myself getting out of bed and going to check on the circuit breaker. It was dark in the garage and I stumble over a bunch of stuff making my way to where the circuit box was. I flipped the master switch a few times before the power came on. I felt something cold and wet on my hand and looked down to see two ladybugs crawling on my thumb.

I fed the cats on my way back upstairs, got in the bed and went back to sleep. I woke up again and tried to turn on the lights but the power was off. I walked out of the room and was about to go to my daughter’s room to look out of the window when I saw the shadows of my two cats in the dark. But they weren’t making a lot of noise like they usually do. When I tried to figure out why, I noticed something else in the room at my feet… something pale in the dark that the cats were keeping a safe distance from. I jumped up on the wooden chest, startled, and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. When they did, I realized there was a seagull walking around in the loft.

I realized this was what was probably in the room when my short haired cat was looking at the ceiling fan. Suddenly the fluffy cat turned into some kind of bird and attacked the seagull, closing her long tweezers-like bill around the seagull’s neck. The short haired cat turned into a duck, a little awkward and clueless. The fluffy one, with the neck of the seagull in her mouth, mumbled that she needed some help. The short hair tried to help but couldn’t get her bill around the seagull’s neck.

The loft was full of junk and turned into a downstairs living room with a wide open door that led to the garage. I opened the door and the fluffy cat dragged the resisting seagull into the garage and lost her grip. The seagull turned into a white eyed Siberian husky pup and it was trying to get past all the junk in the garage to make it back into the house, but I kept redirecting it toward the open garage door. Frustrated, it gave me a depressed look, sad that I was putting it out. Its faced morphed into that of a cute little brown skinned girl and she begged me to let her stay because she had no where to go. I had to explain that I didn’t have the time or resources to take care of her… even though I wanted to. Realizing I wasn’t going to change my mind, she started skulking away into a ditch where the long grasses grew.

That’s when my wife, youngest daughter and one my professors pulled up. When my daughter got out of the car, I pointed her attention to the husky and said, “There’s your dog.” She went to it and I realized they were a good fit. I realized that my daughter might be a dog person. My wife and the professor were trying to understand why the dog was there and to whom it belonged. When I told them that she was a little black girl whose mother had died and had subsequently been taken in by an abusive foster family, and that she had run away, the professor stated decisively that she would be staying with us.

While my daughter hugged and played with the dog, I informed everyone, in the spirit of full disclosure, that I knew of the girl, and that she was prone to trouble in the special education classes I taught. It was then that the girl recognized me as one of the teachers in the school she attended, and explained to me why she was always getting into trouble. It had something to do with a gang of five or six young Czech men who were in the business of providing guns to bad kids in school.

I visualized a meeting taking place, interrupted the exchange, and chased the Czech kids off campus. The professor, a dean at the school, called the police and cautioned me that I may have butted into something that wasn’t going to be so easy to get out of. The police detective that showed up issued the same warning and added that it probably wouldn’t be the last I would see of the Czechs, and that I probably made an unwanted enemy of them for disrupting their business.

We all went to the professor’s office and got on the phone with a lab director at the local university. I’m not sure why but for some reason this person was an integral part of the case. While the professor was on the phone, he argued his point by sharing that he had been in school full time since he was five years old and had earned six degrees in psychology and was, as a matter of course, an expert when it came to understanding human behavior and motives. Apparently he convinced the lab director to meet with us and we took a trip to the university.

The detective seemed on edge when we entered what looked like the medical wing of a detention block. She kept her hand on her holster once we entered the room. The professor, the detective, and I all sat at a table in what appeared to be a commons area. There was an old-fashioned phone receiver on the end of a cord attached to the table through which we communicated with the lab director on the other side of a steel gate.

I’m thinking that one of the Czech suspects used to be a patient at the facility and we were there to gather some intel. I was handed the phone and the lab director explained in long detail the profile of the ringleader. I didn’t take everything in because I was distracted by the gruesome circus of inmates around me. I felt like I was on the island of Dr. Moreau. It was obvious that experiments were being carried out on these societal rejects… horrible experiments. I saw exposed brains, extra appendages, various deformities, and non-complaint subjects confined in smaller cages. The most disturbing thing I saw was a huge woman, with muscles on top of muscles, completely naked, sitting on the other side of the gate facing me, with a penis implant. I almost threw up.

The detective, realizing that she was getting twitchy, excused herself and got up from the table. The professor stepped out as well, needing better reception fir a call coming in on his cell phone, leaving me at the table waiting for the lab director to come back to the phone. He had gone to check on something and so I was left with nothing else to do but take in the sights and sounds of the place. I heard something that sounded like a cross between a growl and a muffled roar and leaned over to see where the sound had come from. When I saw something that looked like a cross between a man and a lion, I blinked a few times, not believing my eyes. Just then the gate opened and a lab attendant, who was noticeably inebriated, walked past me without closing the gate behind him.

As I wondered what kind of stress he had to deal with that required him to dope up while at work, one of the inmates walked over to me and started flirting with the idea of bashing my brains in. Without thinking, I took the phone I was holding and chucked it at him, popping him upside the head. The phone hit the floor and I grabbed the cord it was attached to and started swinging it to carve out some space between us.

He only became more determined to get at me and warded off a couple of hits reaching for me. I kept swinging the phone to keep him at bay while looking for a way out. Other inmates started coming through the open gate and I looked around for the lab attendant who had been in the corner lighting up, but was now leaving the room through a vault-like door. I panicked. Someone caught the phone and I made a break for the only way out of the room. When I got close the lab attendant started closing it. I yelled at him and grabbed at his lab coat through the opening before he could close it all the way. From a stainless steel cart against the wall, the lab attendant grabbed ahold of some kind of medical device and jabbed at me with it. Because he was slow, I managed to take it from him and stab two of the inmates in the chest with it, killing at least one of them, which really riled up all the other inmates.

The director showed up out of nowhere and took the apparatus from me and strained to push the heavy door closed behind us. Eyes wide with fear, he told me we needed to get out now. We ran through the halls looking for an exit and got separated as the building alarm sounded. I burst through a door into a gymnasium where some people were standing around on mats talking. As I ran past the group to get to the door on the other side of the gym, I realized one of them was you. I yelled to you to get out now. You were hesitant, confused, and wanted an explanation.

In my mind I went through the possibilities: taking the time to explain to you why… and getting caught by the escaped inmates; snatching you up but then having to contend with you trying to resist … and getting caught by the escaped inmates; or me just flat out telling you to get out and leaving it up to you to listen or not. I went with the last one.

Luckily you left your friends and came with me. We made it outside and I saw my old building janitor who might remind someone of the actor, Idris Elba, and I yelled at him, “Mr. Smith, get out of here!” as we ran up the grassy hill toward the parking lots.

You had your car keys out, pressing the alarm to see where you had parked. To our left the inmates had broken out of the building and were overrunning the grounds like mad zombies, attacking every clueless person they encountered and eating them alive. Your car alarm chirped from the most inconvenient lot, one which necessitated us running back toward the rabid inmates.

They were fast. The one I clocked in the head was coming at us with bloodlust in his eyes. The horde was right behind him and they were close. In desperation, I pushed you ahead of me, not knowing if you were going to make it but determined to at least give you a chance. The inmate crashed into me and we both went down. I think I started crying, wishing I had that claw thingy the director took from me.

We wrestled and I kicked him off of me, scrambled to my feet, and slugged him with your book bag. Just then tires screeched behind me and I turned around, jumped into the car, and you floored it. For some reason I drug another inmate into the car with me and told you it (because it looked like some kind of gel monster) was one of the good ones. Then the alarm woke me up.

Friday, March 03, 2017

A chapter from childhood

After raiding the candy jar tucked back in the corner of that third shelf in the pantry, we broke out of the house like gangbusters, too hot to catch the screen door that slammed behind us waking up Auntie.

I had just made it out of the yard, and was closing the gate behind me when I looked up and saw her standing on the steps with her housecoat open, bra and panties showing; eyes bloodshot from anger and a six pack she murdered.

"Gitcho ass back in here!" she cussed through gritted teeth, and I ain't had no choice. I looked in vain at the backs of the others disappearing round the corner, and sunk down in my shoulders.

"And close that got damned gate!" she spit as I started that long walk up the broken pavement to the house.

"Running in and out this house... I told y'all asses I'se trying ta sleep." She broiled as I flinched, squeezing past her through the screen door. The color on her chipped toenails looked like dried blood.

"Now you can sitcho ass up in here." she said, pointing at the couch. "An if I hear another muthafucka run in and out this house, I'm taking a switch ta all y'all asses." she decreed, flipping her housecoat behind her like a cape, and disappearing into the darkness of her bedroom.

I sat my ass there til the clock sucked all the light out of the room, staring at the knobs on the television I couldn't turn on.

I don't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, I had slobbered all down the front of my t-shirt. A lamp was on in Auntie's room and she was on the telephone. Through the curtains I could see the street lamps starting to flicker on. I could hear the rest of them through the open window. They were probably sitting on the porch eating candy and cracking jokes.

I leaned forward to look through Auntie's bedroom door... to see if she could see me... to see if she had forgotten about me... to she if she would feel sorry for me and tell me I could go out front with the others. She wasn't thinking about me. I heard her pop and peel back the tab on a can of beer as she laughed and fussed with someone on the other end of the phone line.

I had to go pee, and started rocking on the couch, wondering how long I'd be able to hold it. I knew not to get off that couch without permission.

While I concentrated on holding it in, Auntie startled me, appearing suddenly in her bedroom doorway. "Tellem I said git they asses in here." she said calmly, after taking a puff from her cigarette. "Y'all eat them leftovers in the frigerator, but you mothafuckers bet not touch my sweet potato pie." she pointed her cigarette at me.

I slid off the couch looking scared and made my way to the front door as she took another drag from her cigarette and walked back into her room.

"Yo ass got caught! Haaaaaaaa!" they all laughed when I walked around to the front. They were all gathered on the steps, swatting mosquitoes and breaking off the glowing part of lightning bugs they caught.

I ignored them and looked to see who still might have had some candy left over. Bug was the only one with a sucker in his mouth, so I asked him if he had any candy left.

"I just got this one..." he frowned, mean mugging Yvette. "She made me give all mine to her.

"Boy, shut up! You too young for all that candy anyway!" she yelled at him, breaking her neck the other way to ignore him.

I hated every last one of them. Ain't nobody saved me no candy. My lip started to quiver, but I tightened my jaw so I wouldn't cry. I took a deep breath and let it go slowly. As I let it out, a bright idea filled that space between my ears and I started grinning.

Only person knew what that meant was Yogi, and when he saw it, his eyes got paranoid. When he saw me walk around to the side door, he climbed off the front steps like a sneaky little possum and followed me.

I walked in the house and walked right up to Auntie's bedroom door. She was sitting on the edge of her bed with a beer and cigarette in one hand and the phone in the other. I knew not to interrupt her and just stood there waiting. Yogi didn't dare stand behind me and risk being seen, so he climbed up on the couch and kept quiet.

It dawned on me that Auntie hadn't been talking and I thought it was a long time for her to be listening to someone. Then I realized she wasn't even on the phone. She looked up and asked absently if we had eaten. I took a deep breath and lied.

"Vette and them said they ain't feel like coming in yet..." I said, my face getting hot with fear.

It didn't seem to register at first. She got up slowly and put the phone back on the base and set her beer on her dresser with about three or four other empty cans. Then she opened up her drawer and my face started stretching at the corners of my mouth. She pulled out a belt and slid her feet into her fluffy house shoes before walking past me and out the door.

Yogi sat wide eyed knowing what was about to go down. I could've counted the heartbeats, but I didn't. I just ran to the open window and pressed my ear against the screen. Suddenly all hell broke loose. Screaming and cussing and tumbling and scrambling. In my mind I pictured what it looked like and got giddy.

Served 'em right for not saving me no candy.